Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

101 Ashes frustration It was a disheartening end to a tour that had promised so much. Had Parks not missed stumping Burge, had England batted properly at Adelaide – there were crucial turning points, but sober assessment must acknowledge that, though Mike had at his command bowlers who would give him everything, only when the pitch began to turn at Sydney did his attack have the class to break through a strong Australian line-up. Among his five quicker bowlers he had no-one who was, or who would become, world class. ‘We should have taken John Snow,’ Mike now reflects. As in South Africa it had been a happy tour, well managed and well led. ‘One of the best captains I’ve toured with,’ wrote Colin Cowdrey at the end of his long career. Keith Miller, who had not championed Mike’s original selection, became a convert to his style of leadership, quoting the dressing-room attendant at the Sydney cricket ground: ‘I have never seen an England cricket team as happy as this one. There are no cliques like in other years. They seem to be like one happy family.’ Mike’s relaxed style had at first bemused some members of the Australian press. To a gathering not attuned to ironic deprecation he had even made reference to ‘that miserable urn’, and it amused him to feign less interest in journalists’ questions than in the rugby scores from home. Nor did his casual dress for press conferences conform to conventional protocol, Ian Wooldridge reporting in the Daily Mail that the captain had arrived ‘in slippers, with a crumpled cream shirt and a pair of trousers about which even Oxfam would have second thoughts.’ But, whatever his sartorial deficiencies, Wooldridge had no doubt that this was a captain ‘whose players would follow him into outer space.’ For all his popularity with his team, Mike was returning without the symbolic urn. This brought his tactical acumen under the microscope. Why was he so reliant on seam bowling? Why so reluctant to turn to leg spin when he needed wickets? This time, too, though Mike had made plenty of runs in the state matches, in the Tests he had averaged only 17.83. He was not earning his keep as a batsman. By mid-February the tourists had been away from home for over four months. It had been a long, hard slog, but it was not yet over. Following the dictates of tradition and economic travel, there was another month to be spent in New Zealand and the journey home was further extended by having to play two one-day matches in Hong Kong. Though three Tests were to be played in New