Lives in Cricket No 40 - Edwin Smith

129 Team mates and friends He was a consummate professional and can be proud of that last word, because it summed him up in everything that he did. Whether in practice, matches, his appearance or his attitude, Edwin was an outstanding professional, thorough and committed in everything he did. Peter Gibbs is another who remembers Edwin well. He played for Derbyshire between 1964 and 1972, scoring just under 9,000 first-class runs in an attractive style, before retiring to become a successful playwright, script writer and author. When I think of Edwin it is with words like stoic, stalwart, patient, tolerant and affable. To be a reliable professional for the length of time that he played is quite a feat. I know as a coach that he was able to bowl a tight line and length well into his seventies and that’s a sound attribute for instructing younger players. He was a good timer of a ball too, especially strong square on the off side. He was a particularly good bowler on flatter wickets, where patient application was called for. I remember him bowling Colin Cowdrey at Burton-on-Trent, much to the batsman’s dismay, since he wanted a bit of pre-Test match practice on a decent batting track! Brian Jackson is another who speaks of him highly. Edwin was the best! I loved the guy and he was so reliable – if he got hit occasionally you put it down to a batsman’s good day, because he seldom had bad ones. I will always remember that perfect arm ball he bowled to Basil d’Oliveira at Kidderminster, but you always knew that he would be probing away and testing the batsmen. If he played today, he would walk into the England side. There’s no one in the same league as him in the modern county game. What has Walter Goodyear, groundsman at Derby throughout Edwin’s career, to say? As a player and as a man, he was one of the best. You would struggle to find anyone with a bad word to say about him. His wife and mine were very good friends and I came to know Edwin well, both professionally and socially. He’d have liked a bit more turn on my wickets at Derby, but he never complained, he just got on with it. Yorkshire and England legend Geoffrey Boycott was typically succinct and to the point when asked for his thoughts on Edwin. Nice man, lovely off spinner, caught me at backward point, diving left- handed when I was on 99 .... Bastard! Praise also came from an unexpected quarter, when the name of Edwin Smith featured in a best-selling novel by top crime writer Martin Edwards, who explains that the inspiration was the Derbyshire spinner. Edwin Smith was one of my favourite Derbyshire cricketers when I