Lives in Cricket No 21 - Walter Read

78 1891 With Lohmann and Sharpe to the fore, Surrey dominated and won the County Championship, though for Read it was another modest season - 831 first-class runs at an average of 23.08 with a highest score of 77 after a first-innings duck for the Gentlemen in an innings defeat by the Players at Hastings. Earlier the Gentlemen dominated the equivalent fixture against the Players at The Oval, winning by an innings and 54 runs, Read ‘taking out his bat for an extremely well played fifty’ in a total of 258. 139 Unusually, in the Gentlemen of England (albeit with two Australians and an Irishman) v Mordecai Sherwin’s Nottinghamshire XI match at Scarborough, Read distinguished himself with the ball. In a career spanning a quarter of a century, his batting was of world-class standard, his fielding well above the norm, but his slow lobs brought him only 108 first-class wickets including 6-24, a career best, three of them in as many balls in this match. 139 Cricket 9 July 1891 Surrey and England 1888/97 A Cartoonist’s view of Read in Moonshine 22 August 1891.