Brian Frederick Hastings (born 23 March 1940) is a former New Zealand

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er. A middle-order

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

, he played 31

Test matches Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

between 1969 and 1976, scoring four

centuries A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

. He played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

for

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

Central Districts The Central Stags, formerly known as Central Districts, are a first-class cricket team based in central New Zealand. They are the men's representative side of the Central Districts Cricket Association. They compete in the Plunket Shield firs ...

and

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...

between 1958 and 1977.

Cricket career

Early career

Born in the southern

suburb of

Island Bay Island Bay is a coastal suburb of Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, situated south of the city centre. Island Bay lies on the bay which shares its name, one of numerous small bays off Cook Strait and west of Lyall Bay. 500m offshore in ...

, Hastings was educated at

Wellington College Wellington College may refer to: *Wellington College, Berkshire, an independent school in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England ** Wellington College International Shanghai ** Wellington College International Tianjin * Wellington College, Wellington, Ne ...

. He made his first-class debut for Wellington at the age of 17 in the final match of the

Plunket Shield New Zealand has had a domestic first-class cricket championship since the 1906–07 season. Since the 2009–10 season it has been known by its original name of the Plunket Shield. History The Plunket Shield competition was instigated in Octob ...

in 1957–58, scoring 27 and 22 in a low-scoring match that Wellington won. He was immediately selected to play in one of the trial matches to help the selectors choose the team to tour England in 1958, but he was not successful. He did not play first-class cricket again until late in 1960, but he captained the New Zealand Colts team on its tour of Australia in the 1959–60 season. In 1960-61 he had a full first-class season with Central Districts, with moderate success. In 1961 he transferred in his work from Blenheim to

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

, and in the 1961–62 season he played his first match for Canterbury in the final match of the Plunket Shield, scoring 149 and "batting beautifully".

Dick Brittenden Richard Trevor Brittenden (22 August 1919 – 10 June 2002) was from the 1950s to the 1980s New Zealand's most prominent cricket writer. Early life, family and career Brittenden was born at Rakaia on 22 August 1919, and was educated at Chris ...

, ''The Finest Years: Twenty Years of New Zealand Cricket'', A. H. & A. W. Reed, Wellington, 1977, pp. 139–42. Hastings struggled in subsequent seasons until 1964–65, when he made 629 runs for Canterbury at an average of 62.90, characterised by firm driving and crisp square-cutting. He captained Canterbury in their first-class match against New Zealand Under-23 at the end of the season and dominated the match, scoring 226 of Canterbury's total of 396; New Zealand Under-23 made only 157 and 81. He was considered unlucky not to be selected for New Zealand's tour of India, Pakistan and England in 1965. His next three seasons were moderate, but his performances in 1968-69 "finally convinced everyone that Hastings was of international class".

International career

Hastings was the highest scorer in the 1968-69 Plunket Shield, with 432 runs at an average of 86.40 including two

, and scored another century for

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

against

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

in a trial match before the Test series against West Indies. Selected for the Test team for the first time, he scored 21 and 31 in the First Test. In the Second Test, New Zealand needed 164 to win, and were 40 for 3 at the end of the fourth day, but Hastings scored 62

not out In cricket, a batter is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batter is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at t ...

, playing "handsome strokes to take New Zealand to their fifth victory in Test cricket". In the Third Test, after New Zealand

followed on In the game of cricket, a team who batted second and scored significantly fewer runs than the team who batted first may be forced to follow-on: to take their second innings immediately after their first. The follow-on can be enforced by the team ...

200 behind, he played a "great, match-saving innings" of 117 not out. His aggregate for the New Zealand first-class season, 872 runs, was at the time the second-highest ever made by a New Zealand batsman. Thereafter Hastings was a fixture in the New Zealand middle order until 1975. "Time and again,"

noted, "he played his best cricket when it was most needed." He was also a fine fieldsman anywhere in the field, but especially in the

gully A gully is a landform created by running water, mass movement, or commonly a combination of both eroding sharply into soil or other relatively erodible material, typically on a hillside or in river floodplains or terraces. Gullies resemble lar ...

, "where he brought off some amazing swooping catches". In the low-scoring Second Test against

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

in 1969-70 Hastings scored 80

and 16, substantial contributions towards New Zealand's first Test victory over Pakistan. He scored 105 in the Third Test in the West Indies in 1971–72, adding 175 for the fourth wicket with

Bevan Congdon Bevan Ernest Congdon (11 February 1938 – 10 February 2018) was a New Zealand cricket all-rounder who played 61 Test matches and 11 One Day Internationals from 1965 to 1978, which included a spell as captain. Captaincy He was captain of the ...

; New Zealand went on to a 289-run first-innings lead, but were unable to convert it into victory. In the Third Test against Pakistan in 1972–73, when New Zealand were struggling at 251 for 9 in reply to Pakistan's first innings of 402, Hastings made 110 and added a world Test record tenth-wicket partnership of 151 in 155 minutes with

Richard Collinge Richard Owen Collinge (born 2 April 1946) is a former New Zealand cricketer, who played 35 Tests and 15 ODIs. He was New Zealand Cricket Almanack Player of the Year in 1971. Domestic career He played domestic cricket for three different sides. ...

to level the scores. In the Second Test in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

in 1973-74 he made a punishing 83 to set New Zealand up for a likely victory, only for the last day to be rained out. A few weeks later, in the Second Test at

, he made 46, adding 115 for the fourth wicket with

Glenn Turner Glenn Maitland Turner (born 26 May 1947) played cricket for New Zealand and was one of the country's best and most prolific batsmen. He is the current head of the New Zealand Cricket selection panel. Early life Glenn Turner was born in Dune ...

, as New Zealand pushed on to their first Test victory over Australia. His last seven Test innings produced only 23 runs, bringing his overall average down from about 35 to 30.

After cricket

Hastings worked as a manager with ''

The Press ''The Press'' is a daily newspaper published in Christchurch, New Zealand owned by media business Stuff Ltd. First published in 1861, the newspaper is the largest circulating daily in the South Island and publishes Monday to Saturday. One comm ...

'' in

for 38 years, retiring in the late 1990s. He then joined his former Test teammate Graham Vivian in his artificial turf supply business. Between 2000 and 2002 he also acted as a

match referee A match referee is an official appointed to oversee professional cricket matches. Match referees for Test matches and One Day Internationals are appointed by the International Cricket Council (ICC). Most matches below international level do not ...

in 10 Tests and 18

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

s. He also served as president of Canterbury Cricket.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hastings, Brian 1940 births Living people Cricketers from Wellington City People educated at Wellington College (New Zealand) Canterbury cricketers Central Districts cricketers New Zealand One Day International cricketers New Zealand Test cricketers New Zealand cricketers Wellington cricketers Cricketers at the 1975 Cricket World Cup New Zealand cricket administrators South Island cricketers