Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

blank with them; he traced a payment from the address in Nottingham of Finn’s girlfriend towards the fare for the two of them to New York. Alas, Finn and his girl had sailed the previous day, escaping the jurisdiction of English law. This was a bad example to a young employee whom Richard had taken on as a fourteen-year-old two years before. The youth would later become a highly successful rival to Richard in business as well as a member of Notts and England elevens. His name was William Gunn. This season, 1874, was a rare one when Notts were let down by their batsmen, with the result that they lost six of their ten first-class matches. Only Richard, still at the head of the averages with 370 runs, but at an average of no more than 21.76, showed anything like first-class batting, and it was a long time before he achieved much. He scored 43 for Notts against Surrey in a low-scoring match at Trent Bridge at the end of June. A week later he made two good efforts for the Players at Lord’s, but his 43 in the first innings occupied 100 minutes, 12 of his first 14 runs being singles, and his 19 in the second engaged, if that is the word, the spectators for 80 minutes. His side would have been hard put to it without him when they went in a second time to score 161 to win: they reached their goal by two wickets. The Gentlemen may have been irked, not only by the result but by the way Richard chose to play the slow left-arm bowler, David Buchanan, who over after over, tossed the ball up outside the off stump. In his own words: ‘Daft, though he played a very good innings, allowed some 20 off balls in succession from me to go past him without attempting to play them.’ But there was a further edge to the feeling between some Gentlemen and some Players. On 10 June 1874, the day after the finish of the match at Lord’s between MCC and Notts, the London correspondent of the Nottingham Journal mused: ‘The little cricket quarrel does not appear to have been made up yet. Daft will not play, it seems, in the same matches as Mr G. [ sic ] Grace so long as that cricketer continues to rank as a “gentleman”, while he, Daft, is reckoned only a “player”. For this, there is some show of reason. Daft was once a “gentleman player” but his means being somewhat circumscribed, he was fain to take the salary of a player, and as such had to figure in the matches without the prefix “Mr” to his name, and to associate with the other professionals.’ Gentlemen and Players 64