Lives in Cricket No 40 - Edwin Smith

116 An impossible task him in the averages, but was away with England regularly and played only 12 Championship matches. It left seam support in the hands of the willing but considerably slower Keith Stevenson and Phil Russell. Frustratingly, the spin attack had a bad year, Venkat’s 31 wickets costing the same in runs, while Swarbrook had only 21 wickets at 55 each. At least Geoff Miller made progress, at the age of 21 taking 42 wickets and suggesting potential with the bat. The batting should have been less of an issue, as West Indian star batsman Lawrence Rowe had been engaged to considerable fanfare. During the winter of 1973-74, before he arrived at the county, Rowe had scored 302 for the West Indies against England in Barbados. This had dispelled the idea that he could only make runs on his home wicket in Jamaica, while suggesting that Derbyshire supporters were in for a feast of runs from a batsman of charm and class. It didn’t work out that way. On his debut against Sussex, at a freezing County Ground, Rowe scored 38 in the first innings and 94 in the second, all of them while wearing pyjama bottoms under his cricket trousers, as well as every sweater he could lay his hands on. His square cutting was especially impressive, but it remained his highest score for the club. What went wrong? Edwin supplies the answer. He was a lovely lad, but he had such bad luck with injuries. He arrived with a niggle in his ankle, picked up a shoulder injury and had trouble with his eyes, a problem that was later to require surgery. Then we found out he had an allergy to grass and the story quickly went around that if Lawrence was sniffing, put Derbyshire in to bat! His problems meant he didn’t practice as much as he should have and he kept making beautiful thirties and forties, then finding a way to get out. At times he looked so composed, so balanced and had so much time to play the ball that you wondered how he did it. His playing peak didn’t last all that long and it didn’t work out for him or us, but he was a lovely, laid-back lad and a very elegant player. With better luck he could have been one of the all-time greats. Derbyshire won that opening game of 1974 but were to win no more Championship matches that summer. Two wins in the Benson and Hedges Cup was an improvement, but they still didn’t progress from the group stage, while a first round defeat against Hampshire in the Gillette Cup at Derby was inevitable, once the home side had been bowled out for just 86. The John Player League saw only four wins and a third-bottom finish. Rowe’s 72 against Worcestershire at Ilkeston was the highest individual score by a Derbyshire batsman in the competition and indicative of the main problem. The side simply could not score enough runs and Rowe, who just scraped past a thousand in the County Championship, was the only one who did. It would be easy, not knowing the way the club was run, to lay the blame at