Lives in Cricket No 40 - Edwin Smith

55 Chapter Nine Les The weather of 1958 was almost as bad as 1956. Only two of Derbyshire’s 15 home matches escaped interruption and rain affected play on 43 of the county’s scheduled 90 days of cricket. It was the last summer in county colours for Cliff Gladwin, who had turned down lucrative league offers the previous winter to have one last season. He left on a high, taking 117 wickets in the Championship at just 15 runs each. At 42 he was still a fine bowler and was to continue taking wickets in the leagues for years, but had been frustrated by those new regulations on leg side fielders, as Edwin explains. Cliff liked a leg slip and a backward short leg, as well as a man back on the boundary at fine leg. The changes meant he had to dispense with one of these and it annoyed him, as it did off spin bowlers, of course. Cliff liked taking wickets and he liked bowling economically, so one of those had to be affected by the new requirements. We were limited to five men on the on side, but I remember Bob White of Middlesex saying that he broke the rules when he bowled round the wicket, because he then had six! The loss of Gladwin to the county was in some ways offset by the emergence of Harold Rhodes, son of the former county spinner. Having switched from spin to seam at the suggestion of Derbyshire coach Denis Smith, Harold took 71 Championship wickets at less than 19 runs each and made an immediate impression, according to Edwin. Harold had been around the staff for a few years and we all knew he could bowl. He had a nice run up, an easy sideways action and a very ‘whippy’ arm action. In due course that action would be looked at by cricket authorities from every possible angle, but there was never any thought among us that his delivery was anything other than legitimate. What became very clear was that Harold was quick. Genuinely quick. There were a lot of lively bowlers on the circuit, but as Frank Tyson disappeared after a meteoric career, effectively burned out on the slow Northampton wickets, Harold and Fred Trueman were comfortably the quickest in the country. I fielded at short leg for him occasionally and the ball would zip through consistently quickly, but when he really bent his back, which he did at least once an over, I used to feel sorry for the batsmen. He learned quickly from Cliff about using the new ball well. The two