Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

Chapter Eight Nottinghamshire Captain Familiar figures leaving the county eleven included Alfred Clarke (1863), Jackson (1866), Grundy (who last played in 1867), Brampton in the same year, and Cris Tinley (1869). The year 1870 saw the last of George Howitt, who left Notts for Middlesex, and, in tragic circumstances, the promising young batsman, George Summers. Richard himself, Jemmy Shaw, Bignall, Oscroft, Wyld and Alfred Shaw straddled the period, though Alf’s time as the emperor of bowlers was yet to come. The seventies saw a great enrichment of the eleven as John Selby, Fred Morley, Billy Barnes, Arthur Shrewsbury, William Scotton, Wilfred Flowers and Mordecai Sherwin forced their way into the team. All went on to represent England in the Test Matches, which became an increasingly important feature of cricket after 1876/77. Richard, as captain, was in the right place at the right time: this was to become one of the strongest county teams in history. How tested he was in leading this side of outstanding cricketers and characters we shall find out. The Notts fixture list in 1870 was still limited to seven matches – compared with Surrey’s 18. Richard appeared in the first six games before his play was brought to a premature end by an injury in August. For Notts, his figures were 495 runs at 61.87, far ahead of the county’s second-highest scorer William Oscroft, with 194 runs at 17.63. In all first-class cricket Richard scored 565 runs at 51.36, an average exceeded in the season only by W.G. himself. Richard had first led Notts in 1862 when Parr was absent and continued as a stand-in captain until 1870, taking over entirely in 1871 – Parr had played only four matches in 1870. The captain celebrated his ‘appointment’ by presenting the team with new caps, which were black with cherry-coloured ribbon piping down each seam. It seems that the leadership simply ‘devolved’ to Daft as Parr’s ‘right-hand man’, without as far as is known, any formal decision being made by the County Club’s executive. 47