Lives in Cricket No 25 - Tom Richardson

aBOut tHe autHOr Yorkshire-born Keith Booth graduated from the university of reading in 1964 with an honours degree in French, little used these days, though it did come in useful in tracking down tom richardson’s last days. His early career was in retailing and university administration, at a time when universities were self-managing and less subject to government control. He has completed almost two decades with surrey county cricket club, mostly as 1st Xi scorer. in addition, he is approaching a hundred international matches and in between times, with the help of his wife Jennifer, who is 2nd Xi scorer, researches and writes about the county’s giants of earlier years. so, tom richardson - some would argue the greatest fast bowler of all time - follows edward Pooley, charles alcock, George lohmann, ernie Hayes (no 8 in the Lives in Cricket series) and Walter read (no 21 in the same series) into his canon of surrey biography. they were preceded by Atherton’s Progress , a diary of the 1994/95 West indies tour when keith acted as scorer to the BBc’s test Match special team, and Knowing the Score: the Past, Present and Future of Cricket Scoring , making eight books in all. The Father of Modern Sport: the Life and Times of Charles W. Alcock was short-listed for the cricket society’s Book of the Year award for 2002. George Lohmann, Pioneer Professional went one better and won it five years later.