Jack Richards

Clifton James Richards (born 10 August 1958) is an English former first-class cricketer, who played in eight Tests and 22 ODIs for England from 1981 to 1988. He was a wicket-keeper and a useful lower-middle order batsman, who made 133 for England against Australia at the WACA, Perth in 1987.

The cricket correspondent Colin Bateman remarked, "England's most gifted wicketkeeper-batsman since Alan Knott. Always competitive, often outspoken and sometimes disruptive, Richards was alert and agile with the gloves although prone to the odd lapse". and ended the series with 264 runs at 37.71. Less obtrusively he also enjoyed success in the series behind the stumps, taking 15 catches and 1 stumping, including five catches in the first innings as England clinched the Ashes at Melbourne. After the test series he was also part of the England team which won the Benson & Hedges one-day challenge. Despite losing his place at the end of that tour to French, he was also part of the England team that won the one-day Sharjah cup that spring. He played in the ODIs against Pakistan at the start of 1987, although the selectors preferred French for the Test matches that summer, Richards only playing in the third Test at Leeds when French was unavailable.

Given that the selectors had up to this point favoured him for one-day internationals, of which he had played 21 compared to 6 Tests, he might have been expecting to appear in the 1987 ICC Cricket World Cup that autumn. But the selectors instead recalled Paul Downton.

Richards, as French's No. 2, was selected for the Australian and New Zealand legs of a long winter], but would play only one more one-day international, at Melbourne, the scene of a previous triumph. This time he finished on the losing side.

Richards made two more Test appearances the following summer against the West Indies, but England lost both matches and he failed to make an impact with his batting, previously his strength. Despite a record-breaking benefit at Surrey, he retired even though he was just 30 at the time.

After quitting professional cricket, Richards went to work in Rotterdam as an operations manager at the Van Weelde international shipping company, owned and run by former captain of the Dutch national cricket team . He now lives in Belgium with his Dutch wife, running a successful Rotterdam shipping firm in neighbouring Holland and director of an international recruitment and crewing agency.

He was the manager of the Belgian Under-16s rugby union team, and still is the president of the Antwerp Cricket Club. He was also the head coach for the Belgium national cricket team.