William Raymond Hunter (3 April 1938 – 9 December 2020) was a Northern Irish

cricketer 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 st ...

and

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union, two codes of ru ...

player.Cricket Archive profile
/ref> He played for Ireland in both sports. In cricket he won 28 international caps and played in 11 first-class matches. In rugby he played ten times for Ireland in the Five Nations, scoring one try. He also played for the

British and Irish Lions The British & Irish Lions is a rugby union team selected from players eligible for the national teams of England national rugby union team, England, Ireland national rugby union team, Ireland, Scotland national rugby union team, Scotland, and ...

Early life

Raymond Hunter was born in Belfast on 3 April 1938. He attended Wallace High School in

Lisburn Lisburn (; ) is a city in Northern Ireland. It is southwest of Belfast city centre, on the River Lagan, which forms the boundary between County Antrim and County Down. First laid out in the 17th century by English and Welsh settlers, with th ...

and played international hockey and football for the Ireland schoolboys teams. After leaving school he worked in insurance.

Cricket

Hunter played cricket, using his height to his advantage as a right-handed

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, th ...

and right-arm

medium pace Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. T ...

bowler. His rugby training also served him well in the field where his speed made him an excellent

cover point Fielding in the sport of cricket is the action of fielders in collecting the ball after it is struck by the striking batter, to limit the number of runs that the striker scores and/or to get a batter out by either catching a hit ball befor ...

. Hunter played junior-level cricket at

Dunmurry Dunmurry (; ) is an urban townland in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Dunmurry is in the Collin electoral ward for the local government district of Belfast City Council. History Until the end of the 18th century, Dunmurry was largely an agricul ...

. Hunter started his club cricket career with

Lisburn Cricket Club Lisburn Cricket Club is a cricket club in Lisburn, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, playing in the Premier League of the NCU Senior League. Established in 1836, the club is the oldest in Northern Ireland. It is also one of the most successful, h ...

at the age of 17 and won the Senior Cup Final in his first season. In 1957 his score of 133 helped Lisburn win the

NCU Challenge Cup The NCU Challenge Cup, also called the NCU Senior Challenge Cup and the NCU Senior Cup, is the most important provincial cricket knock-out cup of the NCU jurisdiction in Ireland. The competition began in 1887, with eleven clubs participating in ...

and remains one of the best individual scores in the final of the competition. Hunter moved to

Lurgan Cricket Club Lurgan Cricket Club is a cricket club in Lurgan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, playing in League 1 of the NCU Senior League. The club was formed in 1922 by the amalgamation of Brownlow and Lurgan YMCA cricket clubs. After a short hiatus duri ...

in the 1960s. He was top scorer for Lurgan in the 1972 Senior Challenge Cup Final, giving the club their first win in the competition.

International career

Hunter played 28 times for the

Ireland cricket team The Ireland cricket team represents all of Ireland in international cricket. The Irish Cricket Union, operating under the brand Cricket Ireland is the sport's governing body in Ireland, and organises the international team. Ireland particip ...

between 1957 and 1967CricketEurope Stats Zone profile
/ref> including eleven first-class matches.First-class matches played by Raymond Hunter at Cricket Archive
/ref> Hunter made his debut for Ireland against the

Free Foresters Free Foresters Cricket Club is an English amateur cricket club, established in 1856 for players from the Midland counties of England. It is a 'wandering' (or nomadic) club, having no home ground. The Free Foresters were founded by the Rev. Wil ...

in August 1957. He scored 74

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 ...

in the only Irish

innings An innings is one of the divisions of a cricket match during which one team takes its turn to bat. Innings also means the period in which an individual player bats (acts as either striker or nonstriker). Innings, in cricket, and rounders, is ...

, his highest score for Ireland. He played two matches against

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

in July 1958, before making his first-class debut against

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

later that month. He finished the year with matches against Worcestershire and the MCC. He played four times for Ireland in 1959; against Scotland,

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a Historic counties of England, historic county, Ceremonial County, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significa ...

, Leicestershire and the MCC. He played just once in 1960, against Leicestershire. He played four times in 1961, including two internationals against Australia. In a match that year against the MCC, he took 5/22 in the MCC first innings, his best bowling performance for Ireland. He then spent almost two years out of the Ireland side, returning for two matches against the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Great ...

in June 1963. He remained a semi-regular in the team over the following four years, playing internationals against

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

, New Zealand and Scotland in addition to other matches. His last first-class match was against

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

in September 1965 and his last game for Ireland against

Combined Services The Combined Services cricket team represents the British Armed Forces. The team played at first-class level in England for more than forty years in the mid-twentieth century. Their first first-class match was against Gentlemen of England at L ...

in August 1967.

Statistics

In all matches for Ireland, Hunter scored 800 runs at an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

of 21.05, scoring three half-

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 took 33

wickets In cricket, the term wicket has several meanings: * It is one of the two sets of three stumps and two bails at either end of the pitch. The fielding team's players can hit the wicket with the ball in a number of ways to get a batsman out. ...

at an

of 29.97, taking five wickets in an innings twice. In first-class cricket, he scored 202 runs at an average of 11.22 and took 19 wickets at an average of 23.42. He took five wickets in an innings once.

Rugby union

Hunter also played rugby union to a high level, playing ten times for

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

in the Five Nations between 1962 and 1966, scoring one try.Rugby Union stats for Raymond Hunter at scrum.com
/ref> He also played for the

Personal life

Hunter was married to Maureen and had three sons: Alan, Neil and Graeme. All three played cricket for the first team at Lurgan. Alan and Neil played in the first team of Portadown Rugby Football Club, as did his grandson Stephen. Hunter served on the committee of Lurgan Cricket Club and managed the redevelopment of the cricket square at the club and general improvements to the grounds. His time on the committee included a key period when the club merged with Lurgan Rugby Club and moved to Pollock Park in 1980. Hunter died on 9 December 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, Raymond 1938 births 2020 deaths Cricketers from Northern Ireland Irish cricket captains Rugby union players from Northern Ireland Ireland international rugby union players British & Irish Lions rugby union players from Ireland Cricketers from Belfast People educated at Wallace High School, Lisburn Rugby union players from Belfast