Lives in Cricket No 7 - Richard Daft

figures were seven wickets for 43 as Kent subsided for 78, leaving Notts a glorious victory by an innings and 180 runs. Clearly, the county had a replacement captain in waiting in Oscroft, who was by common consent the best professional batsman of the year. He scored 614 runs for Notts at 32.31. In the first-class batting averages, Oscroft finished fifth with 763 runs at an average of 26.31. Richard began his season of 1879 with an innings of 41 against the strong Lancashire attack, putting on 83 for the first wicket with Oscroft, though the match petered out in a draw, with strong winds which made conditions extremely unpleasant. Richard Brown, a member of the Trent Bridge staff, was killed before the start of the match, falling off a ladder trying to untangle the flag from its pole, when the flagpole snapped. Alfred Shaw, in his sixteenth season in first-class cricket, celebrated his benefit with a match, North v South at Lord’s, by taking six for 39 and eight for 21, but the occasion was not a happy one for Richard who, after the first day had been washed out, was easily caught at slip off W.G. with the very first ball that was bowled by him for only four in the second innings. The loss of the first day was ruinous for ‘the emperor of bowlers’, but W.G. generously asked for the proceeds of his own testimonial match to be given to Shaw. Individual subscriptions for W.G’s testimonial had been coming in handsomely and in due course he received his presentation of £1,400 and a clock. The figures show that, after Richard’s 52 against Yorkshire in the second week of June, in nine innings he had a highest score of only 14. But figures may be deceptive. As to his 13 against MCC at Lord’s, Wisden records that the wicket was ‘awkward’: the cricket was of great excellence as Richard and Oscroft faced good bowlers with their tails up for 80 minutes before, on changing ends, Rylott caught and bowled Richard when the total was 35. Notts then collapsed for 86 and lost by 16 runs. Again, three weeks later at the start of Gentlemen v Players, he batted carefully over an hour for 14, adding 39 with George Ulyett, who went on to make a truly valiant 61. At the end of the season, ‘ Green Lilly’ referred to ‘Daft, whose wicket is still hard to get if the ground is true’. How seldom he had any assistance in that respect in his last few seasons! In the first week of August, he was at Skegness appearing for the Notts Castle C.C. against Lincolnshire: bowled for two, he atoned with 50 in the second innings. This match was staged to open a Eighteen Seventy Nine 89