In 1877, he was supposed to be England's wicket-keeper in what would be the first Test match played; however, Pooley had been arrested in New Zealand and was unable to make the journey to Australia with his teammates.

The game was to be an Odds match where the England XI would play 22 of Christchurch and Pooley simply put a shilling on each batsman to make 0.

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).

[5] 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.

On 21 August 1878, against Kent at Oval, Pooley made his eighth stumping of the match, then a record in first-class cricket.

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.

He described Pooley's hands as "mere lumps of deformity" and attributed their condition to rheumatism caused by drink.

Pooley became angry at this, banging the table to show he had no feeling in his fingers and that it was cricket rather than "rheumatics" that had put him in the workhouse.