Richard Pollard (19 June 1912 – 16 December 1985) was an English cricketer born in Westhoughton, Lancashire, who played in four Test matches between 1946 and 1948.
[1] A big and heavy man, he was known as a hard worker and, according to his obituary in Wisden in 1986, "his reputation as a great trier commended him to the Lancashire public".
[3] In Lancashire's County Championship-winning side of 1934, he was seen as a medium-paced reserve to the front-line bowlers, but injuries, particularly to Frank Sibbles, meant that he played 11 matches in the last two months of the season, and took 38 wickets in them at an average of 19.31.
[6] In Championship games, he made only 14 runs in total, but in the end-of-season Champion County v The Rest match at The Oval, he scored 27 not out in the first innings and 28 in the second.
Injuries to Sibbles and to Frank Booth gave Pollard an opportunity to play 23 matches in 1935, and was awarded his county cap.
[8] Wisden noted how well he compensated for the loss of the senior bowlers: "With length, fair pace and swerve, Pollard proved so successful that, no doubt, he would have taken a hundred wickets for the County had not tonsilitis caused his retirement from the Somerset match.
Phillipson was injured for part of 1938, which put more work on to Pollard and to a degree explains his high tally of wickets.
Unlike some, though, he had a relatively swift return to first-class cricket when the war ended, and he was picked for four of the five "Victory Tests" arranged between England and the Australian Services teams across the summer of 1945.
[23] In his first game, the second of the series after the Australians had won the first, he was upstaged in the first innings by fellow opening bowler George Pope, who took 5/58.
After the Indians had reached 124 without loss on the second day of the match, Pollard caused a collapse with a spell of four wickets for seven runs in five overs.
[32] Having arrived from a country that had had seven years of rationing Australia was a 'land flowing with milk and honey' and Pollard soon put on two stone (28 lbs) in weight.
First, in the match against Derbyshire, he made 63, the only time he passed 60 in his career; he shared a seventh wicket partnership of 148 with Alan Wharton.
[35] The 1948 tour of England by the Australian team captained by Donald Bradman, and subsequently labelled The Invincibles, provided convincing evidence of the weakness in international terms of English cricket at the time.
[37] The draw at Old Trafford encouraged the selectors to persevere with the same fast-medium combination in the fourth Test, at Leeds, but in a high scoring match on a good pitch the lack of spin bowling was decisive.
[39][40] Lancashire's reliance on Pollard lessened during the 1948 season, when his County Championship total of 95 wickets was only eight ahead of the slow left-arm bowler William Roberts.
That was not quite the end of the first-class career as in 1952, Pollard played one further match for a Commonwealth XI against the Indian touring team.