Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

75 the last, against an East Africa Invitation Eleven, first-class. Up to this point Diana had always protested that since getting married she and Mike had never had a proper holiday. ‘True, we’d been to Scarborough a couple of times for the ten-day cricket festival, but I regard that as a busman’s holiday,’ she told the local press. Now Mike’s mother offered to look after their daughter Barbara, born in May the previous year, while Diana accompanied Mike on the five-week trip. Better than Scarborough, perhaps, but the first ‘proper’ holiday was spent with twelve other men, Diana later observed. Managed by Willie Watson, the twelve-man party included ten who were or would become Test players. One of these was Robin Hobbs, who claims his most adventurous previous trip had been to Southend. ‘We had a fabulous six weeks there. I remember on one occasion we were all in this coach and somebody spotted a rhino in a mud pool, so we all trooped over to this mud pool and this bloody thing put its horns up and everybody ran for the bus and MJK, he left his wife there.’ Robin added: ‘He was first on the bus and she was left virtually in front of this rhinoceros. I can see him now chuckling away the way he does.’ As the date for departure to India approached, it became clear that the East African trip would not be the only tour Mike would captain that winter. Cowdrey‘s recovery from his injury was slower than had been hoped, so Mike took over the leadership with Micky Stewart brought into the party as his vice-captain. In contrast to the five months Dexter’s side had spent in the subcontinent, this tour was scheduled to last only 53 days. Returning so soon to India, MCC’s original hope had been to take an ‘A’ side with a core of experienced players augmented by youngsters still to make their name. However, India had pressed for a full Test series and MCC rather reluctantly agreed, though many leading players still remained unavailable. The tour comprised five Test matches and only five other first-class fixtures, a portent of how international cricket would soon develop. It was a hectic schedule, as John Mortimore recalls: ‘Once we started, we either played or travelled all the days but one. Some days we’d play and travel.’ Another aspect of the tour has the ring of a more commercial era, E.W. Swanton observing that MCC’s decision to go to India had come at the bidding of the counties ‘who had their eyes on the prospect of a handsome share-out at the end.’ Two matches were played before the First Test, the second bringing MCC victory over South Zone at Hyderabad by an innings ‘If you can stand up, you’re playing’