Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

21 Records fall at Oxford going in first, Cowdrey assuring him that if it didn’t work out he could revert to his middle-order position. Still making runs as an opener, Mike came to the Varsity Match with a partner whose summer had started at number eleven. Taking advantage of his chance as a nightwatchman, Jimmy Allan had scored 118 against Hampshire and thereafter opened the innings. Mike’s stand with Allan at Lord’s was to be worth 145, but it could have been so different. Three chances went begging in the first two overs, one of them offered by Mike: ‘I got off the mark with the easiest catch I think I gave in my whole career. I got an outside edge and it went straight between Mike Melluish and Dennis Silk for four runs.’ Allan was out for 86, but Mike and Cowdrey added 180 in two hours before a declaration at 401 for three. Mike’s undefeated 201 had been bettered only once in Varsity Matches, by the Nawab of Pataudi in 1931. Cambridge, with a century by Silk, replied well with 344 for nine, but a second declaration by Cowdrey could not quite force an Oxford victory. Mike remembers that Dennis Silk, who captained Cambridge the next year and played for Somerset, also opposed him at centre three-quarter in the Varsity rugby match. ‘He went on to become an outstanding headmaster at Radley – a fine all-round record.’ Mike and Jimmy Allan going out to bat at the start of the University match in front of empty pavilion seats at Lord’s in July 1954. They scored 145 for the first wicket, Mike going on to reach a double century.