Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

66 win by an innings and 73 runs. Another emphatic win at Trent Bridge brought less joy for Mike, who fell lbw to Goddard for nought. Omitted from the team for the Fourth Test, he returned at The Oval but failed to reinforce his right to a place with scores of 0 and 11. With no major tour that winter, Mike joined an International Cavaliers party travelling to South Africa in the autumn under the captaincy of Richie Benaud. Four first-class matches were played, in the last of which, against Natal, Mike made 204, which was to remain the highest score of his first-class career. When Mike returned to England, sport was no longer his first priority. On Thursday 3 November, in front of many of his cricket and rugby friends and with Peter Robbins as best man, he and Diana were married at Holy Trinity, Brompton, with a reception at the Hurlingham Club. After she and Mike had first met, Diana had spent 18 months living and working in London. It was during this time that Mike invited her in 1957 to accompany him to the Ball that is always held after the Varsity rugby match. He did so knowing that she would meet several Blues who had toured the Argentine. A romance developed, and Mike had been able to see Diana again when he made his trip to her country with MCC in January 1959. Mike and Diana spent their honeymoon in Spain, enjoying time in Madrid and Barcelona. On their return they made their home in a flat in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham. Marriage, it seemed, enhanced Mike’s batting. Early in the 1961 season his was the name attracting speculation about a thousand runs by the end of May. He fell more than 200 short, but scores of 45 and 58 for MCC against the Australians helped secure his place in the side for the First Test at Edgbaston. On a testing pitch the medium pace of Ken Mackay caused England problems. A mid-innings collapse saw Mike out second ball to a close catch by Lawry, a decision for which the umpire later apologised. England followed on 321 behind, and a fine rearguard action by Dexter, Subba Row and Barrington denied Mike the chance to redeem his failure. He accepted philosophically that this was to be his only Test of a summer in which May returned to take up his place in the middle order for the rest of the series. The runs still flowed at Warwickshire, where there was a modest rise up the table to twelfth. With over 2,000 runs in championship matches alone, Mike was again top of the county’s averages, while Endurance test in India