Wayne Noon was born 5 February 1971 in Grimsby and was a right-hand bat and wicket-keeper. Educated at Caistor Grammer School, he played representative cricket for Lincolnshire and toured Pakistan with them in 1984.
He made his first-team debut for Northants on 31 July 1988 in a Refuge Assurance League game at Worcester and played one further limited-overs game in a month later. The following season he made his First-Class debut against the Australians at Wantage Road. Later that same summer he played in two Under-19 Tests and three limited-overs internationals for England against New Zealand. The following winter he captained England Under-19s against their Australian counterparts, who were led by future Notts captain Jason Gallian. He kept the captaincy for the subsequent summer series versus Pakistan Under 19s. Overall, he played in eight Youth Tests, scoring 300 runs with 28 dismissals including two stumpings. He appeared in seven Youth limited-overs internationals.
Noon got frustrated with being reserve keeper to David Ripley at Northants. He only played 12 First-Class and 18 List A games in six seasons, so he decided to join Notts ahead of the 1994 season. It proved a wise move as he was a championship ever-present as Notts finished in third place in the table, Noon taking 42 dismissals and scoring 583 runs; the highlight was guiding Notts to a tense one-wicket victory over local rivals Derbyshire at Ilkeston. During the following winter, he played in two First-Class and 11 List-A matches for Canterbury in New Zealand.
In 1995 he received his Notts cap and remained first choice behind the stumps until the arrival of Chris Read from Gloucestershire in 1998. Noon took eight catches in a match versus Kent at Trent Bridge in 1999, including a Notts record seven in the first innings of the same match. Noon also held six catches in the first innings against Derbyshire at Trent Bridge in 1997.
Noon appeared in 76 first-class appearances for Notts scoring 2,340 runs with 12 half-centuries. He took 166 catches and 17 stumpings and had a top score of 83 versus Northants at Wantage Road in 1997. He took 85 dismissals including 21 stumpings in 92 List-A games for Notts, scoring 649 runs, with 46 v Warwickshire in a Benson and Hedges tie his highest innings. In addition, he made four appearances in the inaugural T20 season (2003) which coincided with his Benefit year, playing in Notts’ first ever game versus Durham at The Riverside and making his last first-team appearance in a T20 game versus Leicestershire at Trent Bridge in June 2003.
Noon took over the running of the Second XI when Mick Newell stepped up to become Director of Cricket midway through the 2002 season and served as assistant coach to Mick for a decade before leaving the club in November 2016. He was appointed a Cricket Liaison Officer for the ECB in January 2018 and acted as a referee for Women’s internationals and a Men’s European international T20 tournament in Guernsey in 2019.
March 2020
Nottinghamshire First-Class Number: 526