Sheikh Basharat "Basher" Hassan (born 24 March 1944) is a retired Kenyan

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 of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

er who played for

Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Nottinghamshire. The club's limited overs team is called th ...

from 1966 to 1985. A right-handed

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, he made 14,394 runs at an

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of 29.07.

Biography

After playing club cricket in Kenya, Hassan made his first-class debut for an East African Invitation XI against the

Marylebone Cricket Club The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's, Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London, England. The club was the governing body of cricket from 1788 to 1989 and retain ...

in 1963. He moved to England and made his debut for Nottinghamshire in 1966 against

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whilst serving the then mandatory period of qualification. Having made 579 runs in 1967 he was forced to sit out the 1968 season when

Gary Sobers The Right Excellent Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers, NH, AO, OCC (born 28 July 1936), also known as Sir Gary or Sir Garry Sobers, is a Barbadian born former cricketer who played for the West Indies between 1954 and 1974. A highly skilled bowle ...

was engaged. Initially a

wicketkeeper In cricket, the wicket-keeper is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket, ready to stop deliveries that pass the batsman, and take a catch, stump the batsman out, or run out a batsman when occasion arises. The wicket-ke ...

, he developed as an opening batsman although he occasionally kept wicket in

List A cricket List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the num ...

. He was a notable fieldsman; in 1971 ''

Wisden ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "Bible of cricket" (or variations thereof) has been applied to ''Wi ...

'' said that "his brilliance in the covers stamped him as one of the outstanding men in this position in the country" and that his team-mates were "fired by the example of the enthusiastic Hassan". He became a regular member of the Nottinghamshire first team in 1969 and scored 1,000 runs in a season on five occasions and scored fifteen

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. His highest score was 182 not out against Gloucestershire in 1977. In List A matches his highest was 120 not out against Warwickshire in 1981. He was notably omitted from the

East Africa East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...

team (which included Kenya the country of his birth) selected to play in the inaugural Cricket World Cup in 1975. Despite his experience in first-class cricket he was overlooked likely as selectors supposedly made a point of picking players that were currently living and playing in East Africa. He was 12th man for

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in a Test in 1985 at

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during the Ashes series after which he retired from

county cricket Inter-county cricket matches have been played since the early 18th century, involving teams that are representative of the historic counties of England and Wales. Two county championship competitions have existed since the late 19th century at ...

. He was for some years the Nottinghamshire Development Manager.''Nottinghamshire Yearbook'' 1988, p. 4

Biography

References

External links

Further reading