Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

119 ‘Would you mind if I came back?’ spinners: ‘The method that was coached in our country at the time was to encourage the bowler to bowl from as close to the stumps as possible and to bowl wicket to wicket. The best exponent of that, and a very good one, was Fred Titmus. Lance, on the other hand, always bowled from wide of the wicket. He was a very big spinner of the ball. I could see the batsman pushing out at him and at forward short leg I expected to get a hatful of catches. But I can truthfully say I cannot remember ever getting one catch off Lance at forward short leg, and I still can’t understand that. He made the ball bounce and he would never bowl without a slip. He got a lot of people caught there.’ Gibbs took time to adapt to English conditions: ‘When he came over, he didn’t want to bowl round the wicket and yet with pitches being uncovered you’d got to bowl round the wicket. Once he appreciated that, it didn’t take him long to get organised round the wicket. He was a magnificent bowler.’ Gibbs was not the only seasoned campaigner to enjoy an outstanding summer in 1971, Mike’s 1,951 runs at 50.02 taking him to the top of the county averages. His good form coincided with a watershed in England’s fortunes. Having won back the Ashes, Ray Illingworth’s side managed one narrow win to edge a demanding series with Pakistan, before losing 1-0 to the summer’s second tourists, India. The sidelining of Cowdrey and the retirement of Dexter, Graveney and Barrington had left opportunities in England’s middle order that younger aspirants such as Amiss and Keith Fletcher had failed to seize. With the Australians arriving in 1972, the season opened with pundits wondering to whom the selectors would turn to defend the little urn. Rising 39, Mike had not expected to be considered, but he started the summer well, taking toll of undergraduate bowling in The Parks and then at Fenner’s, where his century came off a more searching Cambridge attack. With no younger player pressing his claims, another hundred against Essex at Chelmsford brought forecasts of Mike’s recall. M.J.K. Smith was duly chosen for the First Test in a team whose average age was 32 and in which two men, skipper Illingworth and Basil D’Oliveira, were older than him. News of his selection came as Mike was playing for Warwickshire in the tourists’ last match before the Test. He had laboured for 40 in the first innings, but a fluent 78 not out before the weather put paid to the county’s bold bid for victory sent him to the Test in confident mood. In the three Tests he was to play that summer Mike belied his