Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

splendid cricket.’ The United All England Eleven then collapsed, leaving All England to scramble home by four wickets – Daft was bowled by Freeman for four. In the only match between the two elevens in 1868, played on the Savile Town Ground, Dewsbury, when almost all the participants were northern born, Richard contributed 36 and 14. In the next year he was in at the kill, when the Dewsbury Ground saw the last ever match between the two elevens. George Parr finished with the highest average in the series: A pivotal year for county cricket was 1864: county clubs were formed in Middlesex and Lancashire, over-arm bowling was legalised, and the name of W.G.Grace appears for the first time in published scores, though he was 15 going on 16, and these were not first-class appearances. An interesting feature was that Richard spent the first of two successive seasons coaching at Harrow, helping George Parr to teach the boys there in the company of Arthur Haygarth and the Hon Robert Grimston. This early application to the game paid off in 1861 when, according to William Caffyn, ‘the batting averages were larger than they had ever been before, Hayward, Daft and Carpenter all making over 1,300 runs for averages of more than 20’ – remarkable figures for that time. Richard’s opinion was: ‘There was little difference between the three of us. Carpenter just beat Hayward and myself in eleven-a-side matches, but I was slightly the best against odds.’ He goes on to refer to his score of 114 for the All England Eleven against Twenty-two of Walsall in mid-June: ‘up to that time the largest score ever made against twenty-two.’ It was the end of May before Richard played in a match of any significance. For the All England Eleven against the United, as already noted, he excelled with 48 in the second innings. His next outing was at The Oval when the authorities had introduced a new invention – a house on rollers ‘with figures for telegraphing on each side’. Richard hardly troubled the scorers, totalling only ten and three. His innings against Twenty-two of Walsall was one of the great features of the season as he opened the innings and was Professional 28 M I NO R HS Ave 100 50 G. Parr 18 34 3 646 56* 20.83 - 3 R. Daft 14 27 1 529 111* 20.34 1 1 T. Hayward 14 27 0 469 67 17.37 - 1