Lives in Cricket No 40 - Edwin Smith

30 First team regular - and capped by doing just that. Nor was there the extensive pre-match warm-up that modern supporters take for granted. It was written of the Hampshire legend, Derek Shackleton that his warm-up consisted of ‘combing his hair and having a fag’. Derbyshire’s players might take a few catches from the slip cradle or from the bat of the coach, but their greater energies were reserved for the field of play. The season began on 8 May, two days after Roger Bannister became the first man to break the four-minute mile, at Oxford. Derbyshire set off at a fair pace themselves, beating Leicestershire at Derby after bowling out their visitors on the first day for 134. Edwin took four for 17 in seven overs, before the Gladwin-Jackson combination ensured there was no way back, sharing all ten wickets in the second innings, as Derbyshire won easily by seven wickets. It was an encouraging start and was to prove an excellent season for the county. They finished in third place, but in an exceptionally wet summer they had the worst of the weather, especially as the season drew to a climax. With four games left, they were favourites for the title, just six points behind Yorkshire who had only two games remaining. Yet the rain ruined the county’s next two games, when they were in good positions. It was the pinnacle of Guy Willatt’s captaincy and he resigned his post at the end of the summer to become headmaster of Heversham Grammar School. He had moulded a fine team, in the process abolishing the segregation of the amateur and professional at the club, where amateurs previously stayed in different hotels, changed separately and sat at different tables to eat. Edwin rated him very highly. Guy Willatt was the best captain I played under, without question. He was a messy bloke in the dressing room and used to shake his gear out of his cricket bag onto the floor, where it would be crumpled, stained and creased! But he was a terrific captain and set some innovative and imaginative fields for everyone. He was a very good batsman too and was missed when he retired. As players we had total confidence in him and that was a big thing. Cliff wanted to win, at everything he did and was never slow to speak out, but he respected Guy Willatt and that said a lot about him. Donald Carr, who took over, was a good skipper too, but we felt that he thought if Les and Cliff couldn’t bowl teams out, it wasn’t going to happen. He could be slow to bowl himself too and that cost us on occasions. I think he was a better bowler than he gave himself credit for. Gladwin and Jackson both took well over a hundred wickets in the summer, but it was the emergence of Edwin Smith as a genuine county spinner that caught the eye. He took 71 wickets at 20 runs each, conceding just over two runs an over in the process. His captain was impressed: Smith bowled as accurately as ever, but introduced an element of variety into his attack, hitherto lacking. On hard, fast wickets where