Wally Hardinge

Harold Thomas William "Wally" Hardinge, born 25 February 1886, and died at Cambridge on 8 May 1965, was a cricketer who played for Kent and England. He was also a football international for England.

Cricket career

In a first-class cricket career lasting more than 30 years from the age of 16, Hardinge, a right-handed opening batsman, scored 33,519 runs and 75 centuries. His run total puts him 45th on the all-time list of runmakers, and he passed 1,000 runs for a season 18 times. His one appearance in Test cricket came against Warwick Armstrong's 1921 Australians in a match where Jack Hobbs had to withdraw on the opening day because of appendicitis. Hardinge scored 25 and 5 and was not picked again.

Hardinge continued to score heavily in county cricket, his best season being 1928 when, at 42 years of age, he scored 2,446 runs at an average just under 60 runs per innings. He scored centuries in four consecutive innings in 1913 and four times scored centuries in both innings of a match. in 1921, he became only the third cricketer, after C. B. Fry and Warwick Armstrong, to score a double-century and a century in the same match. He bowled slow left arm spinners well enough to take 371 career wickets. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1915.

Football career

As a footballer, Hardinge played as an inside forward. He started out at various amateur clubs in Kent before signing for Newcastle United in May 1905. After two and a half years there, mainly as a reserve (he...
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