Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

world: he was one of the great and the good who were asked by the editor of Wisden , Sydney Pardon, from time to time to give their views on various problems of the day. A vital issue in the early 1890s was the follow-on. In a two-innings match, the side which batted second and were all out for 80 or more runs behind their opponents had to go in again, and this sometimes resulted in the side which had a great advantage in the first innings having to bat last after the wearisome business of bowling compulsorily in two consecutive innings. Another absurd law provided that a side could not declare their innings closed before the last day of a three day match. In Wisden 1894, Richard’s view on the follow-on was: ‘I think that the follow-on rule should be done away with, now that the declaring rule has come in.’ He presumably based his decision on the grounds that if one artificial constraint on a side’s tactics was removed, so should the other. A year later, the complaints about bowlers with unfair deliveries had been increasing. Richard’s view was a highly conservative one: ‘I saw most of the first-class bowlers last season and although occasionally there might be a ball that was the least bit suspicious, upon the whole I could not, if I had been umpire, have “no-balled” it. I do not think there is anything to complain of regarding our first-class bowlers.’ There were, though, undoubted throwers in the first-class game at the time, and Richard was echoing the timid approach of the professional umpires who were not prepared either to wreck a fellow professional’s career or to incur the wrath of the county establishments by no-balling an amateur. Many of his colleagues were distinguished contemporaries from his playing days: these included Bob Carpenter, Dick Barlow, James Lillywhite and Alfred Shaw. Most respected was Bob Thoms, who had been officiating for over thirty years, a true old friend of Richard’s who stood in his benefit match back in 1876. None of these officials was highly stretched as there were 35 of them available for selection. In 1898, Thoms umpired only ten first-class matches, Shaw in eight, and Richard in nine, resulting in 22 days of cricket for him. Early in 1899, Richard had a further opportunity of expressing his views in Wisden on one or two features of the previous season, high scoring and the lbw rule, but his response in Wisden 1899 was not a very enlightening contribution to the debate! Winding Up 130