David Buchanan

David Buchanan (16 January 1830 – 30 May 1900) was an English amateur cricketer who played mainly as a bowler and who had two careers separated in an unusual manner by a long period out of the first-class game. He was born at Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland, and died at Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Biography Buchanan, despite his very short stature (compared by a later review to Tich Freeman) played as a round-arm fast bowler, for Rugby and Cambridge University, where he was at Clare College, but his results were considered unsatisfactory and his quickly-acquired reputation among the historically worst “rabbits” with the bat caused him to be dropped before the 1851 University match. For the following twelve years, Buchanan worked as secretary and treasurer of the Rugby Club and bowled with moderate success in club cricket until an unusual incident at Old Trafford (then a new ground) caused him to develop the spin bowling that gave him, like contemporary professional James Southerton, belated fame. Buchanan was captaining Rugby against Manchester and the two stock Rugby "trundlers" were failing to beat batsmen which was normal with unrolled pitches and frequent shooters, so Buchanan tried bowling spinners and rapidly caused the dismissal of his opponents. In the few following years, Buchanan developed the art of his slow-medium spinners with such dedication that by 1867 when playing for Southgate club – so strong as to be regarded as first-class – Buchanan was too much for Oxford University with an analysis of fourteen for 126, whilst for Gentlemen of the North he took six for 99 against Gentlemen of the South. It was in 1868, however, that Buchanan's spin bowling achieved genuine fame, as on an Oval wicket invariably the best in the country before the heavy roller, Buchanan took nine for 82 in the Players’ second innings as his pitched-up slow-medium balls spun out batsmen with the skill of Jupp, Charlwood and Pooley. By this time, Buchanan had a delivery described by a critic as a “high round-arm trundle” and it was said that his sharply spun balls wide of the off-stump could tempt batsmen on wickets free of shooters in a manner that the previously orthodox straight, shortish and fast bowling could never do – with the result that the best professional batsmen constantly fell before Buchanan.