Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

55 Chapter Seven In the glare of the Caribbean His remarkable season had assured Mike of a place in Peter May’s team to tour the West Indies. Only five of those who accompanied the captain had been in the party originally chosen for the ill- fated tour of Australia. Among the newcomers who gathered at Avonmouth on 8 December was off spinner David Allen, a surprise selection who had still to meet his captain. There were few luxuries aboard the empty banana boat on which they set sail, and Allen still laughs at the memory of Ray Illingworth, another greenhorn, vainly searching for the snooker room after Alan Moss had mischievously challenged him to a game. Mike was one of several players to be seasick for the first days at sea: It was a poor decision to go on a banana boat for ten days, when you know the first four or five days are going to be rough. I can remember the first night in the lounge before they’d anchored all the furniture down – it was sliding all over the place. The idea that it gave you time to get to know one another was always a farce. If anything, it gave you a chance to fall out with each other! Mike talking with team captain Peter May in the Lord’s Tavern at the players’ get-together before setting off on the T.S.S.Camito to Barbados in December 1959.