Lives in Cricket No 25 - Tom Richardson

103 Technique and Personality The already famous ball by which Jones creates terror in batsmen, even if he does not get their wicket by it, generally pitches rather under half way than over. It comes so quickly off the pitch that a batsman seems only to have just time to get his nose out of the way and is as likely as not to touch it with his bat without intending to do so. It remains to be seen whether Richardson can develop a similar ball. 242 Three seasons later he had not and clearly had no intention of so doing: even Richardson, when he was in all his glory, had not the infinite variety of Jones – possibly because he did not care to make use of the very short-pitched ball, which is so terrifying in the hands of the expert. 243 This is clearly the bumper or bouncer, now referred to in Law 42 as ‘dangerous and unfair bowling’ and preceding by almost forty years its refinement into leg-theory and bodyline and by about twice that the now ubiquitous helmet. There is no doubt that Richardson could have developed a similar ball. There is equally no doubt that it was totally alien to his nature to have done so. ‘Infinite variety’ was not part of his armoury. A century and more later, Simon Wilde is able to take a longer-lens view and place Richardson in his historical context as a successor to Spofforth, the primus inter pares of his own generation, unique in his way and a hero and rôle model for succeeding generations: By the time the lessons of Spofforth were fully absorbed, fast bowling had been transformed. Technically and physically, Tom Richardson formed the perfect conclusion to the overarm revolution: tall and superbly built and operating off a long run, he delivered the ball with a high right arm and smooth rotation of the body, imparting it with genuine speed and a vicious break from the off. Always aiming to bowl 242 Cricket 14 May 1896 243 Cricket 1 June 1899 Richardson at the Oval nets. Maurice Read is the next to bowl. [Roger Mann Collection]