Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

154 Back to Broughton Astley university, Phoebe following her grandfather’s choice of subject in reading Geography at King’s College, London, while Jake is at the same university but studying French in Paris, where his mother hopes he will find some cricket. Her father’s fame developed a love of the game for Carole. ‘I’d rather have Test Match Special on in the background than anything else,’ she says. Given the chance to list her father’s foibles, Barbara mentions Mike’s legendary absentmindedness, a trait that features in magazine interviews with Diana, but Barbara dismisses it as largely illusory. ‘He always knew exactly what was going on,’ she says, echoing Bob Barber’s view of his captaincy: ‘He was sharp, but he never let on!’ In similar vein, for Jamie McDowall, the MJK reputation for vagueness was epitomised by a journey to Blackpool with Mike at the wheel. ‘He said, “Do you know the way?” I said “No.” “Well, have you got a map?” I said “No”. He said, “It’s up and left – we should be OK.”’ Mike has never been one to magnify such problems. Nor does he often allow the mask of ordinariness slip, so let an impassioned Bob Barber redress the balance: ‘Mike wanted and wants to be an ordinary man. But he is not an ordinary man because there isn’t anyone else alive who has played rugby and cricket for England. No, he’s not an ordinary man – he’s an extraordinary man!’ Extraordinary man? Mike will tell you what a lucky man he has been. ‘Better than working’ is his usual comment on cricket: I couldn’t imagine a life without sport, and sportsmen and sportswomen. Get your children out on the sports field or onto the squash court. They’ll come home well tired – end of problems. And the benefits last a lifetime!