Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

The correspondent continued: ‘Mr Grace, [Richard] states, receives a salary and yet is allowed to call himself a gentleman player and to have wine with his lunch, while Daft sits with the professionals and has beer. Of course, all this is very galling to the distinguished Nottingham cricketer, and he may be excused for feeling a little hurt at the difference . . . but in the interests of the game, it is a pity that two such accomplished opponents should not meet at the wickets and defeat each other there. Daft is certainly the next best all-round man to Grace, but he is not the leviathan and he will scarcely succeed in increasing his reputation by the means he has adopted.’ Three days later, under the heading ‘MR R DAFT AND THE CRICKET FEUD’, the Journal resumed: ‘Our London Correspon- dent’s gossiping remarks about the “little cricket quarrel” have caused some discussion in cricketing circles. . . . The statement that Daft “was once a gentleman player . . .” applies with as much, if not more, force to Grace. He, as is well-known, plays in matches the whole season through for the sake of the “salary”. Daft, on the contrary, only plays occasionally, his ordinary business engagements being of far more importance to him than any salary of a player. It is the very fact of Daft’s non-appearance at most of the principal matches in the country, from the above cause, which is put down to a refusal on his part to play in the same matches as Grace.’ Up to the second week in June 1874, there had been only three matches in which Richard and W.G. could have met. Richard did not appear in any of them: he was playing for Notts against Sixteen of Derbyshire on the same dates as the first, North versus South beginning on 25 May, but did not have any first-class or important cricket engagements to coincide with the others. He had five further opportunities to engage with W.G. that summer, and took part in two of them – for Players versus Gentlemen at Lord’s early in July, when he scored 43 and 19, and in the repeat match at Prince’s when W.G. dismissed him twice, for 21 and 0. Looking back to the previous year, Richard had turned out on 15 May for North versus South at Prince’s, but he let seven other chances of a meeting slip, and the two did not face each other again that summer. Only once was Richard playing elsewhere when he might have been playing Grace. Significantly, when he failed to represent the North at The Oval on 24 July 1873, his previous game had been for Notts at the same venue on the immediately preceding days. Gentlemen and Players 65