Lives in Cricket No 40 - Edwin Smith

101 Lord’s in the summer of ‘69 Ward bowled Graham Cooper and after 14 overs; Sussex were only 10 for two. Nor did the change bowlers allow respite, Rumsey’s nine overs conceding only 13 runs for two wickets, while at the other end, Peter Eyre had the greatest day of his career. Edwin takes up the story. Peter was an unlucky player with injury and illness over the years, but on that day he could do no wrong. He perhaps benefited from the efforts of Harold, Alan and Fred, taking wickets as Sussex perhaps saw him as the ‘weak link’ that they had to attack. He wasn’t though, he was a very good, fully committed bowler who hit the right line and length on a regular basis. Certainly he did that day! Eyre finished with the remarkable figures of 10.2-4-18-6 as Sussex slumped to 49 all out. It had taken them 35 overs of batting against a disciplined seam attack in the finest Derbyshire tradition. Many people expected the county’s opponents to be the Sobers-inspired Nottinghamshire, but Yorkshire beat them with some ease at Scarborough to set up a northern showdown at Lord’s on 6 September. In the intervening month, Derbyshire won only one of their five Sunday matches and played some dismal cricket. They were twice dismissed for under 100 and once only just managed to scrape past it. The batting was lamentably brittle, and the portents for the Gillette Cup final were not good. It was the same story in the County Championship. Only three matches were won all summer, as the side finished second bottom. Only Mike Page and Peter Gibbs passed the thousand-run benchmark and the rest struggled for form. Of the attack, only Harold Rhodes and Alan Ward passed 50 wickets among the seam bowlers, the former at 33, not bowling the same pace as before and perhaps feeling the effects of a pre-season crash on an icy German autobahn. Ward finished top of the averages with 57 wickets at 13, but missed a number of games through injury. Who was the quickest, at his peak? Edwin is well-placed to answer. Harold, definitely. Alan was quick and in the late 1960s and very early 1970s was perhaps as quick as anyone in the game. He was very selective as to when he put in the hard yards though, and his fitness was a worry from the start. If the wicket was in his favour, Alan would bend his back; if it wasn’t, he didn’t often try to make things happen. Harold did. In the late 1950s through to the mid-1960s you wouldn’t have swapped him for anyone in the country. He was fast and accurate, things that don’t always go together and even on a good wicket he would bowl some really quick balls that brought results. He paced himself, like the best fast bowlers learn to do, but Harold was a very fine bowler. At times, when I fielded at short leg for him, I used to whistle as one flew past the batsman. A few of them did too! Edwin took 51 wickets in the County Championship, but often got on as