Lives in Cricket No 21 - Walter Read

57 of the outstanding bowling of George Lohmann, but batsmen play their part and none played a larger one than Walter Read. His performance on the second day of the Kent match impressed Albert Craig, the Surrey poet. Surrey were playing catch-up having conceded a first-innings lead of 120. When Mr Key joined Mr Read, each stood with bat in hand, They both struck out right manfully, both made a famous stand. They stood like British soldiers stand, they stood beside their guns, And in three hours, our favourites got two hundred well earned runs. Read had 100, Key 179 and Craig’s second day prediction was fulfilled on the third, Kent, good Old Kent, means victory, but it will not be so, If Surrey fail to win the match, ‘twill finish in a draw. On the social scene too he was becoming prominent: Mr WALTER READ, the well-known Surrey cricketer, is to take the chair at the smoking concert of the Forest Hill Club, to be held at the Bridge House Hotel tomorrow evening. The programme will include a flute solo by Mr C Spencer West the hon sec of the Club and a flautist very much above the average of amateurs, as well as a banjo solo by Professor Joe Daniels, who has often contributed to the amusement of cricketers on occasions of a similar kind. 107 Already equipped with the required cricketing skills, Read was now developing the social skills required of a man chosen to captain England against MCC and, more significantly, in a Test match against Australia the following winter. 107 Cricket 19 May 1887 Surrey and England 1881/87