by A. W. Pullin
Richard Daft was the batsman who, in the match at Lord's in June 1870, had to take the next ball to that which ended the life of poor George Summers. What says Daft now ?—
"In the match Platts's deliveries got up as high as the batsman's head, and at last one shot up extra quick and hit poor Summers on the cheek-bone. He had to be carried away, and the result of the accident was that he lost his life. I had to go in after Summers, and I took the very next ball from Platts. That shot up in exactly the same way, and it would have hit me in about the same place had I not thrown my head back. As it was, it passed me and went right away to the long-stop. Eventually I made 53.
"An incident of a different character, and rather curious, occurred in the same match. Various bets had been made about the scores that W. G. Grace and I would make. In the first innings I made 117, and W. G. scored exactly the same figure, though it should be added he was not out. In the second innings my score, as just stated, was 53; the doctor was bowled by J. C. Shaw for a 'duck.' Backers of my score were on good terms with themselves."
George Parr, who was born and who died at Radcliffe, close to where Richard Daft resides, was in the latter's opinion a master. "No man knew more about cricket than he did. He was a splendid judge, and one of the straightest and best men I ever knew. Still he was a man that wanted knowing. I used to arrange the All-England matches for him, and did nearly the whole of his correspondence, and that was a great deal. We had then about twenty or thirty All-England matches, and we could have had three times as many if we could have found dates for them. It was a labour of love to me to arrange his matches. He used to care a great deal more about walking about with his gun than letter-writing. George Anderson and he used to be fond of sport together, and they were both fine shots."
Having been so intimate with the famous old cricket entrepreneur, Mr Daft is specially qualified to speak of the financial results of the All-England enterprises. He says that Parr made money out of his cricket enterprises, and when he retired he was in comfortable circumstances.
"Cricketers now talk about being hard worked. But when I began to play for All-England we used to play six days a-week for five months, and never had a day's rest except on Sundays and when it was wet. That is absolutely the fact. If we had not All-England matches there were matches at Lord's and elsewhere. We used always to play up to the end of September, and very often up to the first week in October. I have personally played in Scotland on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and then appeared at Lord's on the Monday morning. On another occasion we had to travel all night from Plymouth to Rochdale, and the train being late we only arrived at the latter place at one o'clock. We found a crowd of thousands impatiently waiting for us, and we simply had to put on pads and go straight to the wicket.
"I contend that if a man keeps himself in condition he ought not to complain of being tired and hard worked, as is too often the case now. Moreover there were much fewer bowlers than there are now. We had certain stock bowlers, who simply had to bowl nearly through a match in both innings. In Notts we used to have Shaw and Morley. When we needed a change we would try Morley and Shaw. George Parr, in selecting his teams, used to say, 'I only want two bowlers. But they must be bowlers; they must be the best in England. The other members can bowl as a change when wanted.' Of course I do not overlook the fact that wickets nowadays are so much better than they were; hence old Parr's dictum would not apply to modern cricket. My object is to show that men worked at least as hard in my days as they do now without complaining of feeling tired and knocked up."
An incident concerning Mr Joseph Makinson, of Cambridge University and Lancashire (now stipendiary magistrate for Salford), will bear telling:—
"In one of my earliest matches against the All-England team we played a Twenty-two at Eastwell. The match was promoted by a number of farmers and gentlemen of the district, a Mr M'Dougall being the leading spirit. I was invited to play for the Twenty-two, and Mr M'Dougall also brought Mr Joseph Makinson. When we got to the ground and had commenced preliminary practice, George Parr, on walking round, happened to see Mr Makinson getting his eye in. He thereupon went up to the captain of the Twenty-two and asked, 'What's he doing here V 'He is going to play for the Twenty-two against you,' was the reply. 'No, he's not,' said Parr. 'Why?' 'Because, in the first place, he does not belong to this district, and in the next he is too good to be a Twenty-two man.' 'That's all nonsense; he's a friend of M'Dougall's,' retorted the local captain. 'It's no matter,' said Parr, 'I shall object to him.' In face of this we hardly knew what to do, but in order to make things pleasant Parr proposed that if we would give him Mr Makinson, he would give us any man we liked from his team. We agreed, and asked for Diver, and the exchange was made. The result was amusing. Mr Makinson got no runs for Parr's team, whereas Diver was the top scorer with a beautiful innings of about 60 for the Twenty-two!" Mr Makinson at the time was one of the finest bats in England, and in magnificent form. This shows the uncertainty of the game.
The opinion of an old Notts man like Richard Daft on the so-called "goose game " is worth having, and to Notts players it will be more than interesting—it will be comforting.
"I think," he says, "that Notts have got an unfair name for slow play. It is a case largely of giving a dog a bad name. We have certain men in the Notts team who play as fast as any one else. Many people do not seem to think that fast and slow play largely depend upon whom you have to deal with at the other end—that is, upon who has the ball. Then, again, they do not make allowance for temperament and a batsman's knowledge of himself. Some men are naturally hard hitters; others are cautiously disposed by nature. If you try to make a man alter his natural style you probably take all his cricket away from him. The impatience of the public in this matter is really not reasonable. There are fast hitters and slow hitters. It is impossible for Mr F. G. J. Ford, for instance, to be at the wickets without getting runs. But if other players tried his methods, they would be out in quick time. In my time if a man got runs slowly no notice was taken of it. So long as the result was satisfactory the public did not seem to mind. Old George Parr used always to send in two steady batsmen 'to kill the bowling,' as ha said."
There is another point on which the veteran Notts cricketer has an opinion that should be of special interest to the later generation of players in his old county.
"I don't," he says, "like leg-play. I don't think it is cricket. The law of the game is that the bowler shall have the ball only to attack with, and the batsman only the bat to defend. I therefore do not think it is fair of a man to deliberately stop a ball with his legs. I had frequent talks with the late Hon. Robert Grimston at Lord's on this very subject, and he asked my opinion about it. I told him I did not like it. At that time (Mr Grimston was president of the M.C.C. in 1883), as at the present, it was on the carpet that the M.C.C. might consider whether it was necessary to alter the rules so that a ball, if it would hit the wicket, no matter where it pitched, the batsman should be out leg-before-wicket. I was of opinion that the law should be so altered, and I am of that opinion now. The question arose out of the practice of a great player, whose name I won't mention. Mr Grimston said, 'The only thing is that this player won't last for ever, and we don't want to alter the law to meet special cases.' Unfortunately, however, a player with a great reputation is copied by others, and thus the evil spreads. Personally, I think 90 per cent of the balls that they play with their legs they could play with their bat if they liked. It has been suggested that a distinction should be drawn when leg-play is a deliberate act on the part of the batsman, and that the umpire should then rule him out. That would be most unpleasant for the umpire.
"It is all very well to say that bowlers have developed the break so much that a batsman is justified in using his legs. There used to be break-bowlers before the modern players were born. Old Buttress was the father of break-bowlers. Forty years ago, too, the late H. H. Stephenson used to break tremendously, and he was a fast bowler as well. It was he who in my first
match with Notts, against Surrey at the Oval on June 24, 1858, bowled me out in the first innings. I remember the ball pitched a good six inches wide of the offstump. I got into position to cut it, but it whipped back so quickly that it bowled me. I had not seen that sort of bowling before, so I thought it advisable to study it. I went and sat behind Stephenson for the rest of the innings, and came to the conclusion that if a ball pitched anywhere up to six inches wide of the off-stump, I should have to treat it as a straight ball because it would hit the wicket. By the same rule, if it pitched on the leg- and middle-stumps it would hit me on the leg or go behind me. That was directly the means of enabling me to cultivate the leg and on-strokes, both of which were perfectly safe. I think many modern batsmen do not sufficiently cultivate the on-stroke to balls pitched a little over a good length on the 'two-leg' stumps. Of course I mean balls that break back. Carpenter used to drive that kind of ball very hard, and so did Oscroft,—indeed Oscroft could hit that ball almost harder than any man I ever saw.
"Next to playing, I like umpiring. You see the game from the umpire's post better than from any other point. My experience as umpire has caused me to realise that there are very fine players now in every county. Old players have perhaps a habit of singing the praises of the giants of their younger days, but I have been made to feel, after seeing so many county players at close quarters, that there are some very fine players now, both in batting and bowling. I don't think the fielding of to-day is any better, taking it all round, and remembering that grounds are now certainly easier for fielding purposes than they were. You don't find so many men run out as you used to do, and I think men don't place themselves in a position to save a run as carefully as they ought to do. A good many runs might be saved if this placing of the field received closer attention. The batting stroke which has gone out very much is the 'draw.' I only saw it in one of the matches in which I umpired in 1898, and it reminded me very much of old Tom Hearne, who was a most perfect master of that stroke. If a ball went near the leg-stump he could be relied upon to use the 'draw' and get a run. Still, as I have said, we have some fine cricketers now. I don't think I ever had such a batting treat in my life as in the Derby v. Essex match of 1898, when Carpenter, Messrs Owen, M'Gahey, Perrin, and others played almost faultless cricket."
Mr Daft will speak long and lovingly of his contemporaries, but to follow him closely in this Talk would be to reproduce reminiscences which he has already given to the world in his 'Kings of Cricket.' It will be sufficient to say that he regards Edgar Willsher as "the finest left-hand bowler the world has ever seen," a description which does not clash with his remark that Alf. Shaw was the "Emperor of Bowlers," seeing that the great Notts man had a right-arm delivery. J. C. Shaw, if not quite so fast as Morley, was a more accurate bowler, and had the following peculiarity: "He was a man with very singular eyes. It was difficult to know who he was looking at—whether it was at you or your right- or left-hand neighbour. I have heard batsmen say they really did not know whether he was going to bowl at them or at shortslip."
Yorkshiremen are accustomed at the present time to compare their new bowler, Wilfrid Rhodes, with Peate and Peel. But Daft goes back a generation and draws an analogy between Rhodes and Ike Hodgson, who, like the youngest Yorkshire player, was a left-arm bowler and a right-handed batsman, which, of course, Peate and Peel were not.
"Yorkshire," says Richard Daft, "has always been rich in bowlers, and one of the best was Ike Hodgson. Rhodes somewhat reminds me of him. Hodgson was perhaps a trifle faster, but he also used to bowl good slows with a break. He had a very good-natured grin, and I remember once that when at Bradford (August, 1864) he got me stumped by Ned Stephenson when I had made 80, he consoled me with a smile which was broad enough to put any man in a good humour. I have great respect for Rhodes's abilities. He seldom sends down a bad ball, and always bowls within his strength."
Slinn was another Yorkshire bowler that Daft confesses he was never quite comfortable with. It was off Slinn, the writer may mention, that, after making the 80 at Bradford just alluded to, Daft was stumped in the second innings for 3. Batsmen in their experience meet bowling they like and dislike. Daft pays Slinn's memory the compliment of saying that he always disliked his bowling. Then there was Tom Emmett, "all wire and whipcord, one of the very best bits of stuff a cricketer ever was made of;" but, as every old cricketer the writer has interviewed has, without exception, maintained, "the best bowler of them all was George Freeman."
"During my umpiring experience," says Daft, "I was very much struck with the management of the Yorkshire team by Lord Hawke. I could see, too, that the whole of the team had the greatest respect for him, and the way he treated them. I was particularly struck with the way he considered one or two of his young players. 'I don't believe,' he said, 'in my young bowlers having to throw their arms out in the field.' I also noticed that when his bowlers had been bowling very well, and had not been on a long time, he put some one else on for a change rather than run the risk of tiring them out."
When not umpiring, Richard Daft still plays with and stimulates the Notts Castle team, and not unfrequently shows the rising generation the kind of cricket that made him famous. When fifty-nine years of age he scored 140 not out against an Eleven of Lincolnshire. "It is the first twenty minutes," he says, "that troubles me now, getting my muscles free. My sight is as good as ever it was."
The writer gathered from another member of the Castle team present at this inverview that Mr Daft is a martinet in the field. "If you miss a catch," said the gentleman referred to, "you take the first train home, or wish you were in Llamas' land, rather than face him. If you have got a few runs and look proud, he will tell you that 'if some of you fellows get six, you want to wrap them up in a parcel and carry them home.' Then when I get wickets with my insignificant bowling, he tells me, 'What wretched piffle! it's too bad to hit.'" All the same, I gather that the Castle men venerate their leader.
There are many incidents in Richard Daft's cricket career to which the writer might allude; but are they not written with his own hand in the chronicles of the 'Kings of Cricket' J
HANG1NG on the walls of the pavilion at Kennington Oval is a photograph of the Surrey team of 1861. Men famous in the annals of cricket they were, too —Griffith, Julius Caesar, Caffyn, Mortlock, Sewell, H. H. Stephenson, Lockyer, C. G. Lane, E. Dowson, F. P. Miller, F. Burbidge. Of the players who are there grouped, two alone remain in the flesh. One is Wm. Caffyn; the other the partner in this Talk, Mr Edward Dowson.
The name of Dowson was high in the cricket world in the 'Sixties. It arose again in the late 'Nineties, and in the new century it may rise higher stilL E. M. Dowson, recently captain of the Harrow Eleven, described in 'Wisden ' as "the best Harrow slow bowler since Henry Arkwright," is the son of the Surrey amateur of the early 'Sixties, and it is not improbable that where the father was then the son will be a full generation afterwards. Mr Dowson has taken great pains with the cricket education of his son, who so early as 1898 received an invitation to play in five matches for Surrey, an honour he was unable to accept.
Mr Edward Dowson was born on February 17, 1838. Mr F. Burbidge, the former Surrey secretary, and he were at a private school together at Brighton. Afterwards, as a member of the Shrewsbury School Eleven for a few years, he developed his cricketing powers and perfected them by firstclass practice with the famous Southgate team of the Brothers Walker.
"One of my early performances, which had doubtless something to do with my receiving an invitation to play for Surrey, was with Southgate, against that county eleven on July 11 and 12, 1859. I was run out for 24 in the first innings, and in the second innings made 30 out of 76. G. Griffith was almost unplayable in the latter innings, and took 8 wickets.
"Exactly a fortnight afterwards I was asked to play for Surrey against the M.C.C. at Lord's, and had rather a curious experience. I fielded through the club's first innings, but then retired ill, my place being taken next day by W. Little. I then had to wait six yea
rs before I had an innings at Lord's. The reason was the following :—
"There was a good deal of jealousy between the Marylebone Club and Surrey at that time. Fortunately that feeling has now to a large extent passed away. Lord's ground was rough, and in this match in 1859 Surrey contended it was dangerous to play on. Perhaps the fact that R. Marsham took eight of their wickets for 27 runs may have had something to do with it; but, be that as it may, the Marylebone and Surrey clubs did not meet again for six years, and I therefore had to wait until the year 1865 before I actually had an innings on Lord's ground.
"As I have said, there was a good deal of jealousy between Lord's and the Oval in those earlier times. We at the Oval used to say that a man had only to sleep one night in London to be considered a Middlesex man. But, speaking generally, the question of qualification, in fact cricket as a whole, was taken much less seriously then than is now the case. Gentlemen and players got more enjoyment out of the game, I fancy, than the present race of cricketers do. They were on the jolliest of terms, too. Just one illustration of this:—
o
"We were once playing at Sheffield in the 'Sixties, and rain coming on we had to seek the shelter of the dressingroom. F. Burbidge took up a pair of boxing-gloves and gave me a flick on the ear, and we had a brief set-to. Then on the Yorkshire team coming in, we said that Mr Burbidge would be glad to have a go with the gloves with any of the Tykes. George Atkinson promptly came out to uphold the pluck of his team, and Burbidge and he had a few good rounds. At the close it was generally conceded that Jack was as good as his master. George Atkinson, by the way, was a very good singer, and we always liked to hear him sing whenever we had the chance.