Lives in Cricket No 25 - Tom Richardson

6 Foreword by Martin Bicknell I was very pleased to be asked to write a foreword for Keith Booth’s excellent book on Tom Richardson, not least because towards the end of my career, taking a keen interest in the history of Surrey, I found a new hero. As I crept up the list of Surrey’s all-time wicket-takers it always intrigued me to see who was above me, whether I could catch them and where I was going to finish in the list. My last first-class wicket was in 2006 at Bath, on the ground on which Tom finished his first-class career, Andrew Caddick skying a long hop straight up in the air and I finished on 1,026 wickets, placing me fifteenth in the all-time list. Impressive to me, but probably not to Tom Richardson. Here was a man who knew how to bowl: fast and with incredible stamina, Richardson set the early benchmark for great feats of endurance. In recent times we wrap our bowlers up in cotton-wool, don’t over-bowl them and consider 40 overs in a match as a tough game, worthy of the next week off. This man bowled over a hundred overs in a Test Match at Old Trafford, a hundred overs! With pace and accuracy too. Admittedly I wasn’t there watching and Sky didn’t cover the match but by all reports it was a heroic performance. And his heroic performances don’t end there. Tom went past 100 wickets for the season by 18 June in one year, took 290 wickets in a single season and ended up with just over 2,000 first-class wickets, not bad for a short career. It took me 21 seasons to take just over a thousand! In that 290-wicket season there were 36 five-wicket hauls and 17 ten- wicket matches too, 61% of the dismissals were bowled which suggests pace, hostility and great accuracy. Career figures aren’t too shabby either, 200 five-wicket hauls and 72 ten-wicket matches. Try doing that in modern times. Tom Richardson is quite an odd selection for a hero of mine, but after you’ve read the book maybe he’ll become one of yours too.