Lives in Cricket No 25 - Tom Richardson

54 little trickiness in the wicket, partly due to some splendid bowling by Richardson and partly due to lifeless batting, they could make very little headway. In fact, their first innings was something like that of the first innings of the Australians at Lord’s against England. 120 The ‘little trickiness’ seems to have gone by the time Surrey batted, as they racked up 424 and went on to win by an innings and 115 runs. Cricket did not insult its readers by pointing out the common factor in the two demolition jobs. Among many spectacular performances, this was towards the top and was still fresh in the mind of Corœbus of the Morning Advertiser some sixteen years later when he penned his obituary appreciation: Richardson fizzed off the pitch and even at his pace broke back as much as any slow bowler would have done. No wonder the Notts batsmen failed. I never saw any bowling so horribly difficult to play. 121 In selecting Richardson as one of the Five Cricketers of the Season, Wisden was less hyperbolic, less romantic, less poetic than Cardus was subsequently to be, but, in its prosaic, traditional way, no less complimentary: His greatest feats last summer were certainly performed in the England matches at Lord’s and Manchester. On the last day at Old Trafford, he bowled unchanged for three hours and nearly won a match in which England had followed on against a majority of 181 runs. The characteristics of Richardson’s bowling are too well known to require detailed description. It is generally agreed that no bowler, with the same tremendous speed, has ever possessed such a break from the off. Personally no professional cricketer in England enjoys greater popularity with the general public and among his brother players. 122 Evidence from those who played with him confirms the truth of that last sentence, though he was not exactly flavour of the month of August with the Surrey committee. The players’ ‘strike’ – or maybe lockout – of August 1896 in which Richardson, along with his county teammates Abel, Hayward and Lohmann and Nottinghamshire’s William Gunn, was involved has been dealt with in some detail from both sides in my earlier biographies of Charles Alcock and George Lohmann. 123 The Surrey Independent took a considered, middle-of-the-road view that the professionals undoubtedly had a case, but that the timing and approach could be criticised: The question that has been agitating the minds of the cricket world this week has been the ‘great strike’ of the professionals – Abel, Gunn, Richardson, Hayward and Lohmann and varied are the views that have been expressed in the London press on the matter, but most agree with the action of the Surrey County Committee in refusing to comply with the professionals’ demand for £20 and expenses in the last great 120 Cricket 6 August 1896 121 reproduced in Mitcham Advertiser 12 July 1912 122 1897 p xlvii 123 The Father of Modern Sport pp 197-209; George Lohmann, Pioneer Professional pp 211-229 1896...Annus Mirabilis...England