Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

W.G. : Why didn’t you tell me earlier, and I’d have done it? Never mind, I’ll do it next innings. And he did, batting superbly for 116, and in doing so completing his thousand runs in the month of August, when there were still eight days to go. It was the first time the feat had been achieved in any month. W.G. gave no chance, but Notts were victors by ten wickets in this memorable contest. Richard and W.G. met again at the Brunswick Ground, Hove, in the last first-class game played at the ‘ground by the sea’, for the benefit of John Lillywhite. There were 13,000 people present when W.G. opened for the Gentlemen, but Jemmy Shaw dismissed him first ball with a delivery which broke back sharply. When he walked in to bat the second time, he would have gone early again if Richard had held on to the simplest of chances: but the sun was in his eyes. Now the crowd could revel in the best of Grace; in four hours of splendid batting, he hit 31 fours and with Fred Grace put on 241 in 150 minutes. W.G. also captured seven wickets. At the end of the season, the averages showed W.G. first and Daft, best of the rest, some way behind: At this stage, their career figures read: These figures reveal a contradiction between W.G., apparently an amateur, cricketing on every available occasion, and so producing statistics the like of which had never been known before, and the limited input of Daft, a professional for whom, with his county’s limited fixture list and so many other irons in the fire, the game seemed to be not much more than a hobby. Yet his standing in the game and in his own locality remained high: Great is the hand-clapping, expressive of ‘see the conquering hero comes’ at Trent Bridge, when Daft, well aware of his importance, walks up to the wicket. He takes a good position in Nottingham and the name of Richard Daft, Esq figures in the The Graces and the Counties 53 M I NO R HS Ave 100 50 1 W.G.Grace 25 39 4 2739 268 78.25 10 9 2 R.Daft 12 19 4 565 92 37.66 - 6 M I NO R HS Ave 100 W.G.Grace 1865-71 85 139 16 7379 268 59.99 26 R.Daft 1858-71 125 220 29 5422 118 28.38 4