Donald 'Don' Wrightson Hardy (24 March 1926 – 16 January 1998) was an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er. Hardy was a right-handed batsman who bowled right-arm medium pace

Seam bowling

Seam bowling is a phrase used for a bowling technique in cricket whereby the ball is deliberately bowled on to its seam, to cause a random deviation. Practitioners are known as seam bowlers or seamers....

. He was born in East Boldon, County Durham

County Durham

County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...

 and educated at Worksop College

Worksop College

Worksop College is a co-educational day and boarding school for boys and girls aged 13 to 18 in England. Worksop is split into eight houses - Talbot, Mason, Portland, Pelham and Shirley for boys and Gibbs, Derry and School House for girls.- Origins :...

.

Hardy made his debut for Durham

Durham County Cricket Club

Durham County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Durham. Its limited overs team is called the Durham Dynamos. Their kit colours are blue with yellow trim and the shirt sponsor was...

 against Northumberland

Northumberland County Cricket Club

Northumberland County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Northumberland and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy...

 in the 1948 Minor Counties Championship. He played Minor counties cricket for Durham from 1948 to 1967, making 138 Minor Counties Championship appearances. He made his List A debut against Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire County Cricket Club

Hertfordshire County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Hertfordshire and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy...

 in the 1964 Gillette Cup

1964 Gillette Cup

-Second round:-----------------------------Quarter-finals:-------------Semi-finals:-----Final:-External links:* from CricketArchive...

. He made 2 further List A appearances, against Sussex

Sussex County Cricket Club

Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Sussex. The club was founded as a successor to Brighton Cricket Club which was a representative of the county of Sussex as a...

 in the following round of the same competition, and Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club

Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Nottinghamshire, and the current county champions. Its limited overs team is called the Nottinghamshire Outlaws...

 in the 1967 Gillette Cup

1967 Gillette Cup

The 1967 Gillette Cup was the fifth Gillette Cup, an English limited overs county cricket tournament. It was held between 23 April and 2 September 1967...

. In his 3 List A matches, he scored 15 runs at an average

Batting average

Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...

 of 7.50, with a high score of 15. He captained

Captain (cricket)

The captain of a cricket team often referred to as the skipper is the appointed leader, having several additional roles and responsibilities over and above those of a regular player...

 Durham from 1955 to 1967.

He also played a single first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 match for the Minor Counties against the touring South Africans in 1965. He captained the team in this match, scoring 29 runs in the Minor Counties first-innings, before being dismissed by Atholl McKinnon

Atholl McKinnon

Atholl Henry McKinnon was a South African cricketer who played in eight Tests from 1960 to 1966....

. In their second-innings he was dismissed for a duck

Duck (cricket)

In the sport of cricket, a duck refers to a batsman's dismissal for a score of zero.-Origin of the term:The term is a shortening of the term "duck's egg", the latter being used long before Test cricket began...

 by Norman Crookes.

Hardy died in Felling, County Durham on 16 January 1998.

External links

• Don Hardy at ESPNcricinfo
• Don Hardy at CricketArchive
  CricketArchive
  CricketArchive is a website that aims to provide a comprehensive archive of records relating to the sport of cricket. It claims to be the most comprehensive cricket database on the internet, including scorecards for all matches of first-class cricket , List A cricket , Women's Test cricket and...