Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

for William Caffyn’s Seventy-one Not Out . He was a prolific run- maker in club cricket, but it was said that he had no liking for the first-class game. In Kings of Cricket , Richard says that he was fully determined not to give up the game ‘for no-one knew better than myself the great benefit which is to be derived from it as regards health.’ At the age of 45 he played in as many club and local matches as he would have done if he had been quarter of a century younger. Richard claimed to have amassed 17 centuries after completing his fiftieth year. He always enjoyed a fixture against the North Riding of Yorkshire and with good reason: in 1886, when 50 years of age, he hit up the highest score of his career, 222. In a match against them at Middlesborough in 1887, he contributed 115 to the total of 462 amassed by an Eleven of Notts: young Richard outscored him with 124. Harry’s total was 67 not out in the second innings, and brother-in-law Butler Parr also played well for 43. Richard also captured five wickets in North Riding’s first innings. In 1889 at Osberton Hall, Nottingham, against Wincobank, he returned an even better analysis of nine wickets for 23. Another favourite venue for Richard was Skegness on the Lincolnshire coast, already known as a trippers’ paradise. In August 1882, the Daft family took on The Town at cricket. The home side collapsed for 72 as Richard claimed seven wickets: then, going in second wicket down, he hit an unbeaten innings of 103, out of the family’s total of 144. Only Charles Daft’s son, C.F. junior, of the others scored double figures. Richard’s links with Skegness went back to 1879 when the Nottingham Journal reported that he was one of the proprietors of the new ground. In 1886, the Australian tourists were persuaded to play Sixteen of Skegness and District. It was the only match the team played against odds. The wicket was described as fast and true, but this did not help the visitors, who were bowled out for 103 and 148. The sixteen (fourteen of whom had played first-class cricket) led by 78 runs on the first innings, and lost only six wickets in achieving victory when Richard made the winning hit just before time on the third day. Photographs still hang in the pavilion as mementos of the occasion. It was 65 years before another Australian Eleven returned to Skegness to avenge that defeat by an overwhelming margin. All the participants then were women. Many Preoccupations 110