Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

This quarrel, call’d by some, ‘The Cricket Schism’ – Distasteful term! in fact, a barbarism! But some there be who other feelings stir up, And one of those, I fear, is Mr.Burrup 1 Whose latest insult to our county’s team Is “That a chicken-hearted lot they seem.” [Scene drawn and Notts Eleven ‘discovered’] But here they are, and, for a cowardly crew, They don’t so badly look; “George, how d’ye do ?” Now let us, if we can, find out who may be In the Notts team, a “chicken-hearted” baby. How you would derisively have laughed Had I term’d funky Oscroft here, or Daft. . . . In 1866, Notts played only six matches; to these Richard added only one other first-class game – for the All England Eleven against the United at Lord’s in May, though he did play six times against odds which was more than for some years past. When Harry Butler Daft was born on 5 April, the father gave his occupation to the Registrar not as a cricketer but as a brewery agent, a clear indication as to where his energies were principally directed at this time. The All England match at Lord’s was played for the benefit of the Cricketers’ Fund and took £267 9s 0d at the gate, which must have pleased Daft as Chairman, but in this match he suffered the most painful injury of his whole career. A debutant in the match was George Howitt: his bowling technique consisted of erratic deliveries, a hideously fast break-back from the off, and bumpers, and at Lord’s he felled Richard with a blow on the chin. Nearly fifty years later, a spectator recalled: ‘I remember seeing Daft in a match at Lord’s receive a horrible crack from a bumping ball – a blow so severe that he became rigid with the pain. Old Tom Lockyer, who was behind the stumps, had him in hand almost as he fell, and administered vigorous massage which brought Daft round to face the bowler. . . . The second ball delivered set our hero free to walk unsteadily to the pavilion.’ It was six weeks before Richard made runs in a big match when he hit 52 for Notts against Cambridgeshire. In two rare appearances County Cricket 41 1 William Burrup was the Surrey secretary from 1852 to 1872.