Harry Ian Moore died aged 68 in Macclesfield, having collapsed at a local gym, on 16 February 2010.
Born on 28 February 1941 in Sleaford, Moore was an attractive right-hand batsman, who learnt his cricket at the local Grammar School and with Sleaford CC, bursting onto the Minor Counties scene in 1959 with successive innings of 60, 69 not out and 88 for Lincolnshire – curiously, all against Notts Seconds. It was little wonder that Notts immediately offered him a contract and he joined the Trent Bridge staff in 1960, moving to the county in order to qualify by residence. He spent the initial year with Notts Seconds and Club & Ground teams.
Moore qualified for the county in 1961, but it was not until 26 May 1962 that he made his First-Class debut versus Essex at Trent Bridge, batting nearly two hours for 16 against some difficult bowling from the England duo, Trevor Bailey and Barry Knight. He played only three First-Class matches that summer but in 1963 he hit a century against Oxford University, which sounds not too impressive, but Notts had been beaten by Cambridge University 11 days earlier; when Moore came in, Notts were 7 for 2. This innings secured his place in the county side for the rest of the summer as he scored 1,129 runs @25.08. The end of season report read “Moore has filled the No 4 position well, bringing a touch of solidarity so badly needed and at the same time producing a fine range of strokes.” Moore reached thousand runs in a season a further two times: 1,188 runs @24.75 in 1965 and 1,169 runs @26.56 in 1966.
In 1964 he seemed to lose his way and adopted an ultra-defensive stance; this continued in 1965, when. after a glut of runs early on, he dried up and just crept over the 1,000 mark. 1966 saw a transformation as the press commented: “Moore looked the best batsman in the side. He played far more attacking strokes than ever before and at least he was consistent.” It was unfortunate that injury marred the last month or so of the summer. He was again handicapped by injury at the start of 1967 but came back to occupy the No 3 slot and scored a career best 206no versus The Indians at Trent Bridge. He batted for all but five minutes of the day, but only gave two chances, both after he reached 100. His style of batting was not suited to the Sunday League, which began in 1969, and his Notts career ended at the close of that season. Pat Gibson noted: “I consider Moore to be unfortunate. He has served Notts well for seven seasons (scoring 6,735 runs @25.13 in 176 matches) and I have no doubt that there will be occasions when his determination in the tightest situation will be missed.” In List-A cricket, Moore played 15 times for Notts scoring 209 runs @17.41 with a top score of 29.
Ian Moore returned to play successfully for Lincolnshire until 1977, including a spell as captain, and appeared for Minor Counties North in the Benson and Hedges Cup.
Whilst in Notts he worked for the Nottingham Building Society and then moved to Macclesfield, working for the Cheshire Building Society; he was appointed a Director of that Society in 1991. His later cricket was for Macclesfield CC, for whom he played until 1984. He was also a useful golfer.
April 2020
Nottinghamshire First-Class Number: 431
See Ian Moore's career stats here