Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

137 Mike believed that the ground’s Test status could have been at risk had the playing qualities of the square been compromised, potentially leaving the club with Test-ground facilities but deprived of the primary source of income to service them. Yet the passage of time has caused Mike to reflect on Rouse’s counsel. He has seen artificial soccer pitches tried and fail, but he is excited that technology has moved on to enable Saracens to become the first professional rugby team to play their matches on an artificial surface. With the International Rugby Board having already approved the use of artificial pitches, the development at Saracens has led the Welsh Rugby Union to announce that it is considering the possibility of following suit at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, where the pitch is at present grown elsewhere and brought in on pallets before major matches. ‘Just imagine an artificial outfield for cricket,’ Mike muses, ‘with drop-in pitches.’ Never a blinkered traditionalist, he feels that recent developments with artificial turf may open the way for stadiums of the future to operate as year- round venues for all manner of sporting events, including school use. Though his term in office would not be free from controversy, the early years of Mike’s chairmanship were to be marked by a period of unparalleled success on the field. The recruitment of Bob Woolmer as Director of Coaching was a first step along the road, but crucial to taking second place in the Championship in 1991 was Allan Donald’s haul of 83 first-class wickets at 19.68, a reward for all who had had faith in his ability. Three years later there would be the finest season any county has ever enjoyed, the year of Brian Lara. * * * * * * * The winter of 1991/92 saw Mike’s life in cricket take a new turn when he became the ICC’s first-ever Match Referee, taking charge at the start of Australia’s Test series against India. This was an era in which global cricket was still run from Lord’s. Until 1989 the chairmanship of the ICC had gone hand in hand with the presidency of MCC, with MCC’s Secretary providing the administrative support. When this arrangement ceased, the incumbent of the international chair for the first four years was still an Englishman, Colin Cowdrey, yet to be knighted and eight years from his peerage. By this time there were only the earliest stirrings of the twin factors that were to shape the destiny of the ICC in the ensuing decades: the rising influence of India and the other Asian countries, and the bankrolling of the international Triumphs and tribulations as Chairman