Lives in Cricket No 40 - Edwin Smith

41 Being a professional look at anyone who had dropped a catch and say ‘It would have been four for 17 if this so-and-so hadn’t missed that one’. You dreaded dropping one off Cliff. You would never hear the end of it and he would call you all the names under the sun. But we didn’t mind, because it showed his commitment and he was a wonderful bowler. He loved his maiden overs and if he had bowled five balls without conceding a run, there was no way a batsman would score off the sixth! Indeed, Gladwin came into his own in times of adversity, willing and able to bowl long spells with a short, skipping run and an astonishing ability to control a cricket ball, fondly remembered by Edwin. He was probably just short of international class, to be honest, but at county level, with three short leg fielders, his ability to put the ball on a length was unbelievable, while his stamina enabled him to bowl all day. He was unlike any other bowler of his kind. Nearly all of them swung it into the batsman from the hand, so you saw it swinging all the way. Cliff’s deliveries looked as if they were going straight until halfway down the wicket and then they would swing or jag into the batsman, bringing the short legs into play. He developed a very good leg cutter too and got many caught behind or in the slips as the batsmen played for the expected swing. Such was Gladwin’s versatility, that Edwin sometimes suffered, when conditions would have been in his favour. There was one wicket at Northampton in the mid-50s and when we got there it looked really green. There was little difference between the wicket and the rest of the square and outfield. When we went out to see it up close, it was just grass clippings on top of sand! It was obviously going to turn square and I fancied my chances of a long bowl. The thing was, so did Cliff! When he got a little tired, he cut down his pace and bowled off-cutters, so I didn’t get to bowl that many! There was another time at Worcester, when the usual winter floods had left a kind of silt on the wicket. Cliff said that he’d bowl at one end to break the wicket up for me – and he bowled them out. If there was any help in the wicket at all, Cliff would bowl whatever was required for as long as necessary. He was a dream for a captain, because you often only had to think about changing one end. Like Les Jackson, Gladwin was indebted to Alan Revill, Donald Carr and Derek Morgan, who were as good in the leg trap as any in the country. Edwin was also grateful for their ability. Some of the catches they held weren’t really chances, but their reactions were astonishing and they picked up some outrageous ones. I remember Alan holding one from a full-blooded pull once. We were all looking to the boundary and then turned to see him throwing the