Profile: Kent’s first XI scorer Lorne Hart

PETER BURROWES meets Kent’s first team scorer Lorne Hart, the man who records every ball of Kent's season.

Lorne has two computers: one for all the match details and the other to operate the electronic scoreboard.

He also keeps all the details in a hand-written scorecard for County Championship games or linear sheet for one day games which has to be transferred to the traditional scorebook the next day, as well as having a back-up laptop if anything goes wrong.

There have been occasions when the electric scoreboard has frozen so Lorne also has to keep a close watch on the second old scoreboard above the Les Ames stand which is hand operated by Roy and Adrian to make sure the scores tally.

He also has three radios to keep in regular contact with the Umpires and the Public Address Announcer, Steve Watts, who is on the opposite side of the ground and listen in to the stewards, for anything that may affect the players and umpires – fire alarms going off spring to mind here.

After each session of play Lorne gives a detailed print out to Coach Jimmy Adams also the players seek him out for relevant details of their scores, wickets and averages or stat of the day.

Lorne is currently Chairman of Whitstable Cricket Club and also scored for them from 1996 until he joined Kent, but because of his County commitments is unable to watch them as much as he would like.

They have had a number of useful players in their ranks over the years, England, Middlesex and former Kent star Joe Denly is one of their products, while James Hewitt (Kent and Middlesex) and Dean Brownlee (Northern District and New Zealand) have played.

Before becoming Kent’s scorer, Lorne used to cover for the data scorer for the Press Association and working the electronic scoreboard at Canterbury matches before being given the opportunity to take on the scorer’s role full time.

When Jack Foley decided to semi-retire he split the duties for one season, Jack scoring at away games and Brian Rodwell at home matches but Brian was unable to take up the role full-time so Lorne was offered and gladly took over the duties.

Lorne was asked to be the Media Centre Scorer for an England v West Indies Test match which he considered an honour.” The journalists have their own scorer at Test Matches and kindly asked me to do it for them.” he said.

During his three years as Kent scorer Lorne has built up a number of friendships with his colleagues from other counties and is especially friendly with Northamptonshire’s Tony Kingston, who was the first person he scored with when he started in the role. He is a member of the Association of County Cricket Scorers.

Lorne worked in the Computing Services team at Canterbury Christ Church University, where he was Purchasing Officer, where for his first season he shared scoring duties with continuing to work but took early redundancy as he found he was either working at Christ Church or scoring with Kent and had little time for himself.

He has taken it easy during the previous two winters but hopes to get some work at the University of Kent in the coming months to fend off the boredom, after completing the end of season stats before it all starts again in April!

One of the pleasures of watching every ball bowled and every run scored throughout the summer is following the development of the young players.

Sam Billings, Daniel Bell-Drummond, Adam Riley, Adam Ball, and Fabian Cowdrey have all contributed to the team in the season just gone with hopefully plenty more to come from them in the future to keep Lorne busy filling up that scorebook.