Cricket Lost Out In Battle Of Tortoise And Hare...

Had everything gone the way he and others planned it, Dusty Hare would never have played rugby for England.

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He would have captained Notting hamshire County Cricket Club instead. The presidium at Trent Bridge during the early Seventies thought so highly of the local boy’s tactical acumen that they put him in charge of their Second XI at the age of 20. The previous year he had played in the same England schools’ team as a lad called Graham Gooch.

That Hare had been a rugby player, first and foremost, who happened to play a bit of cricket had always been taken as gospel. It was supposed to have been the other way round and now, before he bows out of full-time employment as Northampton’s Academy manager next month, the record can be put straight.

“I left school to be a professional cricketer, not a rugby player,” he says. “I played rugby for enjoyment when there wasn’t any cricket. I was lucky at Notts because shortly after joining the staff they saw me as a future captain and that if it went well I’d get my chance in the first team.”

The first chance, as luck would have it, emerged during a wet mid-summer’s afternoon in Glastonbury. Somerset had Notts in trouble at 89-5 when the new boy walked out at No.7 to join probably the greatest all-rounder since the Second World War – Garry Sobers.

“He was a lovely guy and always very good with younger players. When I got to the wicket, he came down and said, ‘just play your normal game’. It was wet and the ball was moving around – not easy.”