Lives in Cricket No 25 - Tom Richardson

78 Richardson caused Surrey’s opponents, no matter how good the wicket, to feel very apprehensive of what might happen but last summer the fast bowler had lost nearly all his terrors. Still under thirty years of age, he is quite young enough to recover his form, but to be again his old self he will certainly have to go into training, and get back to something like his former weight. 188 1900 The season began with a win and a draw against new kids on the block, London County, at The Oval and Crystal Palace, Richardson’s return in the latter being 27-2-122-4 including W.G.Grace and C.B.Fry. So there was still some life in the old dog, as demonstrated against Nottinghamshire in the traditional Whit Monday fixture. It was Shrewsbury’s benefit match which Surrey won by four wickets, thanks in no small part to Richardson’s second-innings 37.2-10-90-7, including the beneficiary, bowled for 22. Richardson bowled in something like his old form and it is evident that on a wicket which helps the bowlers a little, he is still a valuable man. 189 W.T.Graburn, ‘cricket instructor’ at The Oval for most of the preceding decade, was able to put the season and Richardson’s form in something of a historical context: As far as the present season is concerned, I see no reason to fear that we shall not do well. Richardson is still a very useful bowler to have on a side. One is apt to forget that a man cannot always take a couple of hundred wickets in a season, and just as one says that ‘Ranji’ is out of form if he doesn’t make a hundred in nearly every innings, so one thinks about Richardson. But the chances are that he will take very nearly a hundred wickets this year, and a bowler who can do that must be a very good man indeed. 190 He did – and followed it by exceeding a hundred in each of the following three seasons. So the decline was relative. By mid-season, apart from seven for 61 at Grace Road and seven for 90 at Trent Bridge, he had achieved little of distinction and lay 46 th in the first-class averages with 59 wickets at 27.37. By contrast Rhodes headed the list with 138 at 11.71. However, fourteen wickets at Leyton (28.3-4-95-6 and 21.3-3-90-8 – six ball overs 188 Wisden 1900 p 2 189 Cricket 7 June 1900 190 Cricket 14 June 1900 Fin-de-Siècle Cartoon showing the expanding waistline which hastened the end of his career.