by Arunabha Sengupta
A few weeks after his celebrated father played his last game for Yorkshire, young Richard won a bat autographed by the two Test teams of the season for the best batting average at Wood Hill preparatory school. Ironically, the England side that signed that bat was the first in a decade and a half not to include his father. Nevertheless, the London evening Star featured his getting the bat as the lead story in its daily Diary.
That same year, he and his brother John went to The Oval with their father, to watch England play South Africa. That was where the boys saw the venue where their father had made his record 364 seventeen years earlier.
The shadow of the famous father continued to loom large. Even when the boys played with tennis ball in their garden at Kingsmead, a broken window would be reported by some zealous journalist.
Perhaps the departure to Repton helped Richard Hutton absorb the pressures of parental fame. With the mythologies of Fry, Crawford, Valentine and Carr going round the corridors of the famous school, great names were no novelty.
He made it to the first XI as a promising batsman and went further. When he scored a half century at Lord’s for Rest against Southern Schools, in the presence of his father, EM Wellings, school correspondent for Wisden, waxed eloquent about movement and mannerisms which proclaimed him unmistakably the son of Sir Leonard. In the local cinema Movietone News relentlessly told the audience, “Once again a famous name makes work for the scoreboard.”
When he got his father leg before for 3 when Repton played MCC in 1961, a spectator who had come to watch Sir Leonard bat was bitter, “A wretched Repton beak put his finger up straightaway.”
Richard beat Crawford’s record for most runs in a school season. By the time he went up to Cambridge he was an attacking batsman and a fast-medium seam bowler, playing alongside Tony Lewis and Mike Brearley, and winning his Blue as a freshman. A thousand runs and fifty wickets in 1963 hinted that one day he could play for England.
He did, but much later, in 1971. After several seasons to establish him as a Yorkshire regular. His father, the best post-War opening batsman the world has seen till today, had scored 0 and 1 in his debut 36 years earlier. Richard scored 58 not out and dismissed Aftab Gul and Mushtaq Mohammad. Sixth father-son pair to play for England.
In the last Test match that season, against India at The Oval, Richard hit 81 from No 8, rescuing England from 175 for 6 and pulling them to 355. He was unbeaten on 13 during the collapse in the second innings against Chandrasekhar. He played in Australia for the World XI that winter. But, that successful outing against India turned out to be his final Test for England.
With the arrival of Tony Greig, it was not easy to regain his place in the England side as an all-rounder.
But averages of 36.50 with the bat and 28.55 with the ball in his 5 Tests do tell us that he did outlive the shadow of his father. 7561 runs and 625 wickets in first-class cricket underline that he was a very good cricketer in his own right.
Much of his later years were spent in the standard manner of most Yorkshire cricketers, in constant conflict with Geoff Boycott.
Richard Hutton was born on 6 Sep 1942. Coincidentally, his great father passed away on 6 Sep 1990.
The picture is of the two Huttons with MAK Pataudi during the University Match at Lord’s, 1963. The facial resemblance with his father is rather remarkable