Ian Michael Richards (born 9 December 1957) is a former English

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er. Richards was a left-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the cricket ball, ball with a cricket bat, bat to score runs (cricket), runs and prevent the dismissal (cricket), loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since Septembe ...

who bowled right-arm

medium pace Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is a type of bowling in cricket, in which the ball is delivered at high speed. The fastest bowlers bowl the ball at over . Practitioners of fast bowling are known as fast bowlers or quicks. Also ...

. He was born in

Stockton-on-Tees Stockton-on-Tees is a market town in County Durham, England, with a population of 84,815 at the 2021 UK census. It gives its name to and is the largest settlement in the wider Borough of Stockton-on-Tees. It is part of Teesside and the Tees Val ...

, County Durham. Richards made his first-class debut for

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...

against

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

in 1976. He played first-class cricket for Northamptonshire from 1976 to 1979, making 23 first-class appearances. In his first-class career for the county, he scored 467 runs at an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

of 22.23, with a high score of 50. This score, his only first-class fifty, came against

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...

in 1976. With the ball, he took 7 wickets at a

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

of 28.71, with best figures of 4/57. His

List A List A cricket is a classification of the Limited overs cricket, limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competit ...

debut also came in 1976, when Northamptonshire played Nottinghamshire in the

John Player League The NatWest Pro40 League was a one-day cricket league for first-class cricket counties in England and Wales. It was inaugurated in 1999, but was essentially the old Sunday League retitled to reflect large numbers of matches being played on day ...

. Richards made nine further List A appearances for the county, the last of which came against

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

in the 1979 John Player League. In his ten List A matches for Northamptonshire, he scored 44 runs at an average of 8.80, with a high score of 18. With the ball, he took 2 wickets at an average of 76.00, with best figures of 1/22. He later joined Durham, making his debut for the county in the 1981

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship or National County Championship is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national counties (previously ca ...

, playing a match each against

Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...

. He played

Minor counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

cricket for Durham in 1981 and 1982, making six appearances. He made a single List A appearance for the county in the

1982 NatWest Trophy The 1982 NatWest Trophy was an English limited overs cricket, limited overs county cricket tournament which was held between 3 July and 4 September 1982. It was the 2nd Friends Provident Trophy, NatWest Trophy, after it had been renamed from the G ...

against

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

. In this match, he scored 9 runs before being dismissed by Kevin Mackintosh, with Surrey winning by 111 runs.

References

External links

Ian Richards
at

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Ian Richards
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Richards, Ian 1957 births Living people Cricketers from Stockton-on-Tees English cricketers Northamptonshire cricketers Durham cricketers Cricketers from Yorkshire 20th-century English sportsmen