More about Gerald

posted by John Winn

Brian set a hare running yesterday, Gerald of that ilk,but the invaluable Cricket Archive has come to the rescue so I can throw a little more light on this Bradford born (1936) seam bowler.

Cricket Archive lists seven matches in which he played and by checking with Wisden it would appear to an accurate record of his representative career.The list does not include any club cricket but we can be pretty sure he played in this type of cricket. The matches are as follows:

17th August 1953 Durham County Schoolboys v Yorkshire Juniors at Darlington. This one day single innings match was drawn with Durham making 194 for 6 and Yorkshire replying with 91 for 2. Gerald took 1 for 16 off 9 overs and this is characteristic of his bowling figures, economic but not very penetrative.

21st August 1953 Yorkshire Juniors v  Durham County Juniors at Headingley.
Another one day match and again a draw. Yorkshire made 213 for 6 with Ken Taylor 128 not out. Durham replied with 106 for 3, Hare 8-4-10-1

8th June 1955 at Park Avenue, Bradford Minor Counties Championship Yorkshire II v Staffordshire
Staffs 110 all out. Hare 8-3-8-2
Yorkshire 217 for 0 dec D Padgett 108 not out J van Geloven 100 not out
Staffs 123 all out Hare 5-2-16-2
Yorkshire 17 for 1 won by 9 wickets.

21st June 1955 at Raeburn Place Edinburgh Midlothian v Yorkshire II.  2 day match.
Midlothian 200 all out Hare 4-1-8-0,
Yorkshire II 326 all out
Midlothian 149 for 4 Hare 6-0-23-0 Match drawn.

22nd June 1955 2 day match at Jesmond. Northumberland v Yorkshire II Minor Counties Championship
Yorkshire 100 all out
Northumberland 254 for 9 Hare 4-1-8-1
Yorkshire 209 all out Doug Padgett 133 not out
Northumberland 59 for 5, Hare did not bowl Northumberland won by 5 wickets.

23rd May 1956 Minor Counties Championship at Marshfield, Settle
Cumberland 173 all out Hare 9-2-12-1
Yorkshire 227 for 9 declared Ted Lester top scored with 56.
Cumberland 93 all out Hare 6-2-13-0 Bob Platt 6 for 27
Yorkshire 40 for 0 won by ten wickets.

30th May 1956 Durham v Yorkshire 3 day match at Ashbrooke, Sunderland (not first class)
Yorkshire 253 all out
Durham 248 all out Hare 21-3-61-3
Yorkshire 346 for 6
Durham 195 all out Hare 7-2-11-1

This is of course the match to which Brian referred in yesterday's posting and for which Yorkshire picked a very strong side. Later that week Yorkshire took on Derbyshire at Chesterfield and 8 of those who had played at Sunderland were in the side that lost by six runs.

An interesting point for me about the Sunderland game is that two Darlington footballers opened the batting for Durham, HD (Harry) Bell and ME (Malcolm) Scott, two of my boyhood heroes. Scott joined Northants in 1959 and as a slow left armer had a long career with them. His first class career which encompassed 185 games finished at Lord's in July 1969. He went wicketless in the first innings when Eric Russell made 170 and didn't bowl in the second innings when Russell was out for 85.

Back to Gerald. Looking at the Yorkshire II averages for Minor Counties matches in the mid fifties it would appear that Cricket Archive has recorded all the matches in which he played so the match at Settle the week before the Sunderland game was his last Minor Counties match. It was only Yorkshire's second match of that season in which they played 18 in total. Wisden says 'As usual the policy was to give trials to as many young players as possible and no fewer than 30 took part in 18 matches. We now have a fuller picture of Gerald Hare's career but the infrequency and irregularity of his appearances remains a puzzle.