Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

133 only his sixth championship match of the summer when sent in as second nightwatchman at Headingley after Warwickshire had followed on against Yorkshire. His previous highest score had been 23; now he hit 161. The next day was the NatWest final at Lord’s – and, an hour before the start, Neil heard he was in the side to play Middlesex. Unlike his father, who ‘couldn’t bowl a hoop down a hill’, Neil was an accurate off-spin bowler, and as an aggressive late-middle- order batsman, he also went his own way, favouring the off side that Mike had so often eschewed. With the wicket of Desmond Haynes for 31 in his nine overs, Neil helped restrict Middlesex to a modest 210 for five in their 60 overs. In challenging conditions Warwickshire also made slow progress and, when Neil went in at the fall of the sixth wicket, 20 were still needed from 18 balls. The target was down to ten when Simon Hughes, a specialist bowler at the death, began the final over bowling to Asif Din. Din took a single off the first ball, and Neil was on strike. Knowing Hughes’ reputation for having a dangerous slower ball, Neil was half waiting for it and when it came he smacked it into the Edrich stand for the only six of the match. Clearly unnerved by this, Hughes then bowled a leg-side wide, and when Neil hit a two the match was won. Triumphs and tribulations as Chairman Between them, Mike and Neil Smith collected 34,455 runs, 377 wickets and 495 catches for Warwickshire in first-class cricket.