Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

50 A golden summer After a mixed start to the season, Warwickshire travelled to the now defunct Erinoid ground at Stroud to play Gloucestershire. The annual festival was always eagerly awaited in the town, but the pitch on the works ground offered little to enthral visiting batsmen. Winning the toss, Gloucestershire batted and made 257. Their seam bowlers, David Smith and Tony Brown, then removed Horner, Cartwright and Mike for 26. Next day Warwickshire were all out for 115, Sam Cook claiming five for 13, as the follow-on was averted with the last pair together. Off spinner Basil Bridge did his best to keep Warwickshire in the game with eight for 66, but their fourth-innings target was 318. Mike came in at 66 for two to join Tom Cartwright. Not out on 12 overnight, next day he played what Cartwright years later described as one of the greatest innings he ever saw. For the left- arm spin of Cook and the off breaks of John Mortimore there was a worn pitch on which the ball was keeping low and turning. When Cartwright fell lbw to Cook and Bert Wolton soon followed, snapped up close to the bat off Mortimore, it was 144 for four. As Townsend came in it was long odds against a Warwickshire win, but he stayed with his captain to add 134. ‘It was just survival to me,’ Townsend says of his own contribution, just 24. Batting on to the end, Mike hit five sixes and 28 fours in an undefeated 182 to lead his side home by four wickets. It remains, in Mike’s own estimation, the best innings of his life. ‘An unbelievable innings,’ says Jim Stewart, ‘wherever they put a fielder, he hit it somewhere else.’ Supporting Cook and Mortimore in the Gloucestershire attack that day was David Allen. Later that year he would earn international recognition, but in May he was still a more sparingly used third spinner, bowling for the first time against a man with whom he would soon be playing for England and one whom he regards as one of the finest players of spin bowling. ‘Mike could take off spinners to pieces because he was such a good leg-side player. On turning wickets he let the ball come right on to the bat then played it away, played it as late as possible. He knew where he was playing it. He could get to the pitch of the ball to get the gaps on the leg side. If he wanted to play it between mid on and midwicket, it went between mid on and midwicket.’ Mike’s season was now gaining a momentum that would make this long dry summer his annus mirabilis, and as his batting flourished Warwickshire’s wins were outnumbering defeats. In July came a patch of deepest purple. Mike’s scores for the month read: 24, 32,