Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

Daft’s biggest set piece characterisations were reserved for George Parr, and Richard’s own two greatest rivals with the bat in the 1860s, Tom Hayward senior and Robert Carpenter. Like Daft, they were all right-handers. Some contemporaries saw George Parr as a difficult man, tetchy and un- predictable, but Richard paints a more rounded picture. He was introduced into first-class cricket by old Clarke in 1844 when he was only 18 years old. Richard writes that Parr was the premier batsman of England. ‘He was a good-looking man of medium height and of a very powerful build. His defence was a little clumsy as he always played very low down and was often much punished about the hands in consequence. His hitting all round was terrific.’ Parr was famous, in particular, for his hitting to leg. Daft adds: ‘All the team, especially we young ones, stood somewhat in awe of him, for George was always rather a queer-tempered man.’ If Richard’s memories of his former colleagues were happy, others regarded them with hostility, not so much as individuals but as a class, because professional cricketers in their travelling elevens subverted the natural order of things. The opinions of many landed gentry were encapsulated by the well-known cricket historian, the Rev James Pycroft. ‘Itinerary cricket’, as he termed it, the falsely-called ‘All England matches . . . a very serious nuisance . . . superseding those annual contests between rival counties which used to draw forth all the talent of the land.’ It was immensely irritating to Pycroft and others that the Elevens 22 The All England Eleven Thomas Hayward (left) and Robert Carpenter were Daft’s professional rivals and colleagues in the 1860s. In first-class cricket, Hayward scored 4,789 runs at an average of 25.33, and Carpenter 5,220 at 24.39.