Norman Hardy played 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...

 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...

 for Somerset

Somerset County Cricket Club

Somerset 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 Somerset...

 between 1912 and 1921. He was born at Norton Malreward

Norton Malreward

Norton Malreward is a small Somerset village and civil parish south of Bristol, England at the northern edge of the Chew Valley. In 1895 Norton Malreward was combined with the neighbouring hamlet of Norton Hawkfield or Hautville into a single parish, which has a population of 241.- History :Norton...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

 and died at Fishponds, Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

.

Hardy was a right-handed lower order batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler. He first played for Somerset in two matches within a week in 1912, but achieved little in them. In 1919, he returned to the team as a professional for four matches, during which he both made his highest first-class score and had his best bowling return. In the match against Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire County Cricket Club

Gloucestershire 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 Gloucestershire. Its limited overs team is called the Gloucestershire Gladiators....

 at County Ground, Taunton, in which Sydney Rippon

Sydney Rippon

Arthur Ernest Sydney Rippon was an English cricketer who played 102 first-class cricket matches for Somerset as a batsman between 1914 and 1937...

 played for Somerset under a false name, Hardy made 38, batting at No 10 and adding 58 for the ninth wicket with his captain, Jack White

Jack White (cricketer)

John Cornish White, known as "Farmer" or "Jack", was an English cricketer who played for Somerset and England. White was named Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1929...

. Against Surrey

Surrey County Cricket Club

Surrey County Cricket Club is one of the 18 professional county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Surrey. Its limited overs team is called the Surrey Lions...

, he took four first-innings wickets for 22 runs. In his four matches in 1919, Hardy took 18 first-class wickets at an average

Bowling average

Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket.A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowlers divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. It is similar to earned...

of 13 runs per wicket to be top of the Somerset averages for the season.

Hardy played in just two matches as an amateur in 1920 and three in 1921 without making much impact. He died suddenly from heart failure while playing football, aged 31.