Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

defeat’; ‘We shall lose much of our prestige . . .’; ‘We were defeated in the earlier part of the week by the Marylebone Cricket Club and we have been thrashed out of time by the Yorkshire men . . . ’; ‘Never have we seen Nottingham cricket to so great a disadvantage . . .’ Such failure was not really offset by Richard’s innings of 102 against the weak Sussex attack at Trent Bridge, nor by a comfortable victory over the Southerners by an innings. Richard had batted for two and three quarter hours, making his runs out of 194 and hitting 12 fours, yet in the return fixture at Hove, Sussex emerged as easy winners, Richard making one and nought. It was their only victory of the season. At the end of the season of 1874, G.B.Davy, the county’s Honorary Secretary, resigned. The formidable Captain Henry Holden, Chief Constable of the Nottingham Town Police, succeeded him. Holden, who came from long-established gentry in Derbyshire, was also Honorary Treasurer of the club until 1882. He took no hostages and operated on a very short fuse. If these characteristics worked successfully in managing the Constabulary, they were sometimes ineffective in his relationships with the professional cricketers. Yet he and Richard worked happily together. The comfortable nature of their association, observed by the other members of the side, laid the seeds of dissension after Richard’s retirement from the county team. Meanwhile, in 1875, Nottinghamshire made a complete return to their best form and were generally considered to be champion county. They played two matches each with Yorkshire, Surrey, Gloucestershire, Middlesex and Derbyshire, and contended with MCC at Lord’s: of these matches they won six and lost two. The team underwent changes. Out went Jemmy Shaw, Biddulph and Bignall. Incomers included William Barnes and Arthur Shrewsbury. The latter, then aged nineteen, would become the finest professional batsman of his generation, and Barnes developed into an all-rounder of international stature. The effect of these changes was to strengthen the side which now comprised William Oscroft, Fred Wyld, William Barnes, Richard Daft, John Selby, Arthur Shrewsbury, Martin McIntyre, Henry Reynolds, William Clark, Alfred Shaw and Fred Morley. These last two dominated the bowling – Shaw had 82 victims in 1875, Morley 36 – and were well supported by William Clarke, of Old Basford, and McIntyre. How long would Richard retain his place in this renowned side? Gentlemen and Players 68