Lives in Cricket No 25 - Tom Richardson

22 stump, at any rate it came back like lightning and the middle stump disappeared into the net; the next ball, pitching nearly straight, hit me on the chest; the third removed the off stump; the fourth hit me on the arm; the fifth removed the leg stick; the sixth and seventh found my ribs . I said “Thank you very much, I don’t think I’ll practise any more today,” and walking away painfully back to the “hutch” I thought in future I would take a breastplate instead of a bat – it might be of more use; it certainly could not be of less. “Who was that bowling?” I asked. “Oh a young fellow named Richardson – Surrey, I think,” was the answer. I had never seen such bowling. 40 Fast bowlers hunt in pairs. With Larwood and Voce, Trueman and Statham, Lillee and Thomson, Ambrose and Walsh, there could be no escape at ‘the other end’. It was no different when Richardson joined Surrey. Five years earlier Cricket had reported with enthusiasm: W.LOCKWOOD, the young professional who made his début for Notts against Gloucestershire at Moreton-in-the-Marsh (sic) at the end of June, and bowled in very promising form against the Australians last week, seems likely, as far as one can judge from his earliest efforts to be of no small use to the County. He was born in Radford, near Nottingham, and will not be nineteen years of age till next March. He learned his cricket in Nottingham Forest, and first came into notice last year in a series of matches played by the Forest Cricket Association. He bowls round arm 41 with a high delivery and though inclined to be short, gets up very quickly from the pitch. 42 The Editor of Cricket happened to be the Secretary of Surrey County Cricket Club on whose books the young Nottinghamshire professional found himself three years later. The county were fortunate, maybe even prescient, in having recruited Bill Lockwood, one of several bowlers who partnered George Lohmann before the latter’s decline in health compelled him to abandon Surrey for two seasons. The way was thus clear for Lockwood and Richardson to team up and keep Surrey at the forefront of county cricket for most of the 1890s. In the wake of Tom’s successful performances with the Second XI and Club and Ground XI, a First XI début against Essex (not first-class at the time) at The Oval followed in May 1892, when the absence of Abel, Lohmann, Sharpe and Maurice Read playing in Alfred Shaw’s benefit match and the unavailability of W.W.Read, provided an opportunity of which the young fast bowler took full advantage: 40 Surrey Cricket: its History and Associations pp 225-226 41 ie overarm: ‘round arm’ was frequently used at the time to distinguish it from ‘underarm’ which, though less fashionable than formerly, remained legal for a further century. 42 15 July 1886 1892-94 Surrey…and England