Ted Pooley - Sporting Career

Sporting Career

All this detracts from his long and successful career as a professional cricketer. By his own account he first kept wicket during a match in 1863 when the regular keeper refused to play on a bad pitch (Middlesex had been dismissed for 20). He was an instant success and kept wicket for Middlesex and Surrey for the next 20 years. Wicket keeping was very different in the nineteenth century. Most keepers stood up to all but the fastest bowlers with a fielder behind them at long-stop to tidy up any byes. Pooley often used his bare hands to catch the ball. At one point he used a bare hand and one soft glove.

According to David Frith in The Fast Men, at an unspecified date (probably before 1871) Jem Mace, the boxer, was watching cricket at Lords when a ball hit a crack in the pitch and took out three of wicket keeper Ted Pooley's teeth. He dressed Pooley's wounds and declared: "I would rather stand up against any man in England for an hour than take your place behind the wicket for five minutes. I heard that ball strike you as if it had hit a brick wall."

In 1871 he broke a finger taking a return from a fielder and the bone protruded from his flesh. His batting, which was very promising in his early years was increasingly hampered by injuries to his hands.

His wicket keeping was fundamental to the success of spin bowlers like James Southerton. Off-spin and orthodox left-arm spin were recent developments following the legalisation of overarm bowling in 1864 and were a puzzle for keepers as well as batsmen.

Including catches made when not keeping wicket, he finished with 854 dismissals in first-class matches.