A noteworthy fact in connection with Richardson, in the four years when he aggregated over 1000 wickets, was the great success he met with on all sorts and conditions of wickets. He could be quite as deadly in the slime or on a drying wicket as on the fieriest piece of asphalt. Now this ubiquitous wicket-taking is given to practically no fast bowler that I have ever seen, with the exception of Spofforth, and he did it not by bowling his usual great pace, as was the case with Richardson, but by slowing himself down to the speed of a Haigh or a Jack Hearne.
It is the general opinion of many of our greatest cricketers—W. G. Grace and Ranjitsinhji, for example—that on a fast good wicket, and when bowling at the top of his form, we have never known the equal of Lockwood. Bowling with a long bouncing run, he can make the ball flick higher and faster from the pitch than any other bowler in this our third class. There is at times the very devil in it, and when the ball is not rapping incontinently at your fingers, it is hitting the middle and leg from well outside the off stump. One of the finest balls bowled that failed to get a wicket was bowled by Lockwood to Ranjitsinhji at the Oval three or four seasons ago.
From an Engraving Published in 1784.
A MATCH AT THE GENTLEMAN’S CLUB, WHITE CONDUIT HOUSE, ISLINGTON.
I was standing at mid-off, and can see it to this day. Ranjitsinhji had just come in to bat, and was, I think, still on the mark. It was very fast; it pitched three to four inches off the off stump, and came back like lightning. I listened for the pleasing rattle of the sticks, but at the eleventh hour—no, I had better say the last hundredth part of a second—Ranjitsinhji’s right leg was bent across, and he received it full on the thigh. There was no other player living who, having failed to stop it with his bat, could have got his leg there in time. He certainly acquired a bruise, but the pain of this surely and swiftly dwindled in an innings of over 190!
One of the finest victories Surrey ever won over Yorkshire was at the Oval. On a perfect wicket Surrey scored over 300 on the first day and a portion of the second. Richardson at the pavilion and Lockwood at the gasometer end started the attack, and on the same magnificent wicket dismissed Yorkshire for 78! Of these, Jack Brown made 48! Those of us who were playing, and those who were lucky enough to have visited the Oval that day, could never in their lives have seen finer fast bowling. Both bowled at a tremendous pace, both bowled at the top of their form; they seemed almost to be bowling man against man, to be vying for supremacy. It was a great day to catch the finest natural fast bowler in conjunction with the finest cultivated fast bowler making sad havoc of a very powerful side. It was in the second innings of Yorkshire that poor Frank Milligan made his last appearance at the Oval, and right well he played, making 64 out of a total of 170 odd. (I should have mentioned before that F. S. Jackson was unfortunately incapacitated from batting through an injured thumb. This of course greatly weakened the Yorkshire batting, but at the time Lord Hawke said he had rarely seen finer bowling.)
Of Arthur Mold this can be said with absolute certainty, that no bowler ever attained a similar pace with such a minimum of exertion—two or three long loose strides, two at a trot, and an arm swinging round like a flail, a good length, great pace, and on any wicket at times a considerable flick back from the off—a bowler that, like Richardson or Lockwood, might bowl a man at any period of his innings, however well set he might be. For as many of us know, there are certain bowlers, generally of the slow or medium class, that a respectable batsman, after an hour or so’s stay at the wicket, can negotiate with safety, unless of course some violent risk be taken. With these three, and perhaps one or two more, it is quite possible to be bowled neck and heels when taking no risk whatever.
Of all the other fast bowlers I have met, the majority, and it is a large majority too, either go with the arm or go up the pitch straight as a die. Wass and Barnes are exceptions to this general rule, for under favourable conditions they bowl with a distinct leg break, and very difficult to play they are.