Harry Altham wrote of him in A History of Cricket, "Maurice Read had been recognised as a dashing player up to Test match form, to say nothing of being a wonderful fielder in the country."

A hard-hitting and, according to Lord Hawke, "magnificent batsman who never had pretensions to be even a moderate change bowler", Read did little bowling except in 1883, when he claimed 27 first-class wickets including his career best of 6/41 against Kent.

He is frequently recorded in contemporary accounts of the game as chasing the ball down as fast as he could, and he certainly managed to bring to a halt plenty of potential Australian boundaries.

In the second innings, Read was one of the many victims of England captain Monkey Hornby's spectacular alteration of the batting order, promoted in front of the apparently nerveless CT Studd.

When he came into view from the pavilion, Read was again cheered stridently all the way to the wicket, but, when Spofforth bowled him for a duck, the Australians were the ones, wrote Charles Pardon in Bell's Life, who "exhibited to the full their increasing delight".

Read was sent along to South Africa with Lohmann in 1892 to be of assistance to the great bowler in his recuperation following a ghastly (but altogether foreseeable) physical collapse as a result of overbowling.

The pair sailed from Southampton on Christmas Eve, and, in March 1893, when Lohmann was healthy enough to be left on his own, Read made his homecoming for the start of the new season.

After scoring 131 to help Surrey defeat Hampshire by an innings in 1895, Read retired from first-class cricket at the age of 36 – relatively young by 19th century standards – to work on the Tichborne Park estate in Hampshire, although he continued to bat with great success in minor cricket for the Tichborne side for some years thereafter, scoring hundreds in successive weekends in 1921 (v Martyn Worthey and Kilmeston)[1] He died at the age of 70 in Winchester after a long illness.