held 8 catches and completed 4 stumpings. Hunter did not play for the county team in 1879 or 1880. Pinder retired after the 1880 season and Hunter succeeded him as Yorkshire's first-choice keeper from May 1881 until May 1888. In all, Hunter played in 162 first-class matches, 143 of them for Yorkshire. Pinder later praised Hunter as "a very good man". By 1886, when Lord Hawke's captaincy of Yorkshire began in earnest, Hunter was one of the team's senior professionals. Hawke had until then been something of an amateur figurehead and had not played much cricket at all since 1882. From the beginning of the 1886 season, Hawke adopted a "new broom" philosophy with the determination of leading Yorkshire to success. While there was no longer any doubt that Hawke was in charge of the team, he always listened to his professionals and Joe Hunter was among a few who could offer "unsolicited advice" that Hawke would often heed. Cricket magazine: portrait and biography In its issue of 25 September 1884, published just after Hunter left for Australia with Alfred Shaw's XI, the magazine Cricket: A Weekly Record of the Game featured him on its front page. Cricket reminded its readers of the many famous fast bowlers used by Yorkshire since the club was founded in 1863 – among them George Freeman, Tom Emmett and George Ulyett – and the consequent need for a Yorkshire keeper to have courage as well as skill. Each of Ned Stephenson, George Pinder and Joe Hunter had "in turn bravely upheld the honour of Yorkshire for pluck in this responsible position". While Hunter was not "as good as Pilling or Sherwin", he was the obvious choice, when they were both unavailable, to stand in for the Players against the Australians at The Oval in July 1884 and to join Shaw's XI on the voyage to Australia for the 1884–85 tour. Cricket mentioned that Hunter was very much a tail-end batsman who had shown little improvement in that department but, in keeping wicket against fast bowling, he had "certainly no superiors". Tour of Australia, 1884–85 As mentioned in the Cricket feature, Hunter was invited to represent the Players against the 1884 Australians at The Oval on 31 July. This was because both Dick Pilling and Mordecai Sherwin were unavailable. It was a three-day match but the Australians won by 9 wickets with a day to