Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

61 that they began to score more freely. At the close England had reached 238 for six with Mike on 35 and Parks 55. Safety was in sight but there was work still to be done when they continued next day. But before the draw had become inevitable, the tour manager Walter Robins bearded Cowdrey in the dressing-room, pressing him to declare in the interests of providing a more entertaining finish and, perhaps, ending the series with a second victory. To Cowdrey and his team the idea was anathema. ‘What you have you hold,’ says Mike. ‘We’d fought hard and got out of serious trouble; we’d had problems with sickness. The general feeling was – why give them anything?’ Mike was out in the middle as ructions were taking place in the England dressing-room, but David Allen well remembers the exchanges with Robins: ‘“When are you going to declare and make a game of it?” “Not on your life, manager. You’re on your own.” “Well, I think you ought to …” Then Fred Trueman got hold of him by his collar and threw him out of the dressing- room. “You ain’t no bloody business in ‘ere. Get out!”’ Mike and Parks took their partnership to 197, a record that still stands for England’s seventh wicket in all Test cricket. Mike reached 96 before he wafted casually to be caught behind off a ball from opening batman Conrad Hunte – until then without a first-class wicket. It was the second of four dismissals in the nineties he would suffer in his Test career. When Parks reached his century, Cowdrey declared. All hope had by then evaporated for West Indies and England’s specialist batsmen had a bowl, with Pullar taking his only Test wicket when he had Worrell caught on In the glare of the Caribbean A seventh-wicket partnership of 197 with Jim Parks in the final Test of the 1959/60 West Indies series left the home side far behind. Mike here adds to his total, eventually 96, with Gerry Alexander behind the stumps.