Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

90 Triumphant in South Africa the cricket had too often become attritional, it was primarily South Africa’s lack of enterprise and the pitches prepared for the Tests that were to blame. England had come out on top through consistent batting and spin bowling of a quality their opponents could not match. For Mike it was, perhaps, the peak of his international career. In the Tests he had averaged 42.83 and for the whole tour his 877 runs at 58.47 placed him second only to Barrington. His catching, too, had played its part, never flinching at short leg in support of the spinners and pouching eight victims in the first two Tests. ‘Wonderful for me to have a bloke like that at short leg,’ says David Allen, ‘just like Arthur Milton at Gloucestershire.’ Those who took part in the unbeaten tour look back on four marvellously happy months. For this they give credit to Mike and to the manager, Donald Carr. They had travelled in comfort, largely shielded from the reality of apartheid. Mike stresses that he was no supporter of the regime but, like most of his team, he preferred not to become distracted by politics. ‘So far as I was concerned, if you felt strongly about it, you shouldn’t have gone. We knew what the situation was before we went. Once you get there, you don’t do anything other than concentrate on the cricket.’ Tom Cartwright, a proud supporter of Labour, later to cite Mike caught on the leg side by John Waite off Eddie Barlow in England’s first innings in the drawn final Test at Port Elizabeth in February 1965.