Mike Smith, known to the cricketing world as MJK, has died at the age of 92. He had been England’s second-oldest Test cricketer, behind Micky Stewart.
Smith was one of the game’s most pragmatic players – a devotee of leg-side batting (‘the man’s side’, he called it), he rose to become England captain for 25 of his 50 Tests.
It didn’t bother him greatly that only five of those 25 ended in victory, since only three ended in defeat, and he could count among his achievements a dour 1-0 win in South Africa in 1964-65, when an England victory in the first Test at Durban was followed by four draws, and a 1-1 draw in Australia the following winter. How many England captains since would have taken that result?
Above all, he was a servant of the game, and a popular leader who happily fielded at short leg in the pre-helmet era – a gesture that went down well with the professionals in the side who would normally expect an amateur to direct the action from the slips.
Smith didn’t quite make the most of his batting ability with England. He managed just 2,278 runs at an average of 31, with only three hundreds, though he fell twice for 99 and was also dismissed for 98 and 96.
But 430 matches for Warwickshire brought him over 27,000 first-class runs and 48 hundreds, and there were eight centuries for Oxford University and seven for MCC. A minute’s silence was held before the start of play between Warwickshire and Glamorgan at Edgbaston today, with flags around the ground at half-mast.
In 1959 Smith scored 3,245 first-class runs and by then a familiar sight with his trademark spectacles, he was the youngest to achieve the landmark
Above all, he was a servant of the game, and a popular leader who happily fielded at short leg in the pre-helmet era
Smith was also the last to represent England at both cricket and rugby union, having played against Wales as fly-half at Twickenham in 1956; Wales won 8–3, and Smith conceded he had played badly.
Cricket, though, was always likely to win out, and in 1959 he scored 3,245 first-class runs – the first player in a decade to top 3,000. At 26, and by now a familiar sight with his trademark spectacles, he was the youngest to achieve the landmark, beating a record held by Ranjitsinhji.
That summer included his first Test century – a round 100 against India at Old Trafford, followed by 98 at The Oval – and recognition from Wisden, who named him as one of their Five Cricketers of the Year, alongside Ken Barrington and Ray Illingworth, among others.
The captaincy followed for the 1963-64 tour of India (five draws out of five), and he kept the job until the first Test of the 1966 home series against West Indies. And he was a popular leader.
John Woodcock, the former editor of Wisden and cricket correspondent of The Times, once wrote: ‘No matter who he was with, or where it was, or when, he was always the same man – absolutely fair and as unselfish a captain as England ever had. His players knew exactly where they were with him, which meant every bit as much to them as their acceptance that he was a good enough cricketer to be in the side.’
Having retired once, in 1968, he dusted off his whites once more to play three Tests in the 1972 Ashes, top-scoring with 30 in the second innings at Lord’s as Bob Massie swung the ball round corners. He later managed England Test tours.
ECB chairman Richard Thompson said: ‘His contribution to the game will not be forgotten.’
