Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

32 His game stifled by the seniority of his fly half, Brace never enjoyed the freedom of his Oxford days in a Welsh shirt, while Mike, deprived of his university partner, would have found Williams, with whom he had played in the final trial, more compatible: ‘He was erratic in the nicest possible way. He was a bit of a one-off – big, strong and athletic and he broke a lot. If you didn’t keep your eyes on him he was gone, whereas Dickie Jeeps was very orthodox. Johnny Williams, in my view, took a lot of pressure off a fly half.’ After Oxford, Mike soon found that cricket tours and the priorities of the summer game restricted his rugby opportunities. He continued to play for Hinckley, whose first international player he had become, and he was also in the Leicestershire side, though playing out of position in the centre. The year after winning his cap, Mike was still in the England selectors’ thoughts, though his only participation in the season’s trials was to come on for ten minutes as a substitute centre in the first match. When he was picked the following winter to partner Jeeps for the Probables in the first trial, it again looked as though he might add to his single cap. The fly-half spot, taken by Ricky Bartlett a year earlier, was now felt to be wide open with Mike opposed by Phil Horrocks- Taylor, who had made a good impression at Cambridge. Behind the stronger pack, Mike ‘had looked the better performer’ to Vivian Jenkins in the Sunday Times ; but at half-time the two fly halves and a centre were swapped over, giving Horrocks-Taylor his chance behind more dominant faster-heeling forwards and away from the predatory tackling of Peter Robbins. ‘The arrangement worked so well it could well become permanent,’ Jenkins now felt. With a blind-side try after a dummy scissors and other good runs, Horrocks-Taylor had ‘underlined his true potential.’ Mike had been happy to play in the match, but he had already pointed out that he was about to set off on a cricket tour with MCC to East Africa which would prevent his taking part in the final trial or the match against Wales, if selected. ‘I have no intention of withdrawing from the cricket tour,’ he had told the press ahead of the rugby trial. On Boxing Day twelve amateurs under the captaincy of Freddie Brown arrived in Dar-es-Salaam to play nine one- and two-day matches, a tour which saw Mike second to Hubert Doggart in the batting averages. He had shown the world that cricket was his first priority and when Horrocks-Taylor was attracting criticism for excessive kicking in his debut international against Wales at Twickenham, Mike was in the warmer climes of Kampala playing a two-day match against Uganda. A cricketer’s hands on an oval ball