Lives in Cricket No 40 - Edwin Smith

65 and I married, Will bought us a beautiful art deco alarm clock. We still have it and it still works, even after all those early morning wake-up calls! From a playing viewpoint, the first summer of the ‘golden decade’ was a frustrating one for Edwin. While he made the second half century of his career against Sussex at Hove, he took only 24 wickets before a broken wrist ended his season in mid-June. This allowed Bob Berry the role of lead spinner and he responded well to the challenge, taking 60 wickets at a shade under 26 runs each. The injury was doubly unfortunate, in its timing and the way it happened. I was washing my car and tripped over a kerb. I landed heavily on my left hand and put a cold bandage on it immediately. The following day, I was due to play for the second team against Lancashire at St Helens and had arranged to pick up Peter Eyre on the way. My hand and wrist were so painful that Peter had to take over behind the wheel. When we got to the ground, I was sent immediately for an x-ray, which showed that I had broken the scaphoid bone. Denis Smith wasn’t happy, as he had to drive back to Buxton for a replacement player! I was in plaster for several weeks and out for the rest of the summer. Later that year, in the November, I went to Lilleshall to do my advanced coaching badge and the hand was still painful. It was suggested that I get it x-rayed again, which showed that it hadn’t healed. So I was in plaster for another four months, which took me up to pre-season of 1961, by the time it came off. Fortunately I was insured against injury and it paid me ten pounds a week during the remainder of the season, while the sick or ‘club’ money from the pit meant that we were perhaps better off than usual. As he recovered at home in Grassmoor, Edwin knew that there was a challenge to his place as senior spinner in the side, but wasn’t unduly worried. Bob was a lovely lad and a decent bowler, but he relied on flight and didn’t spin the ball that much. He didn’t bat either, so I was confident that once I was back to fitness I could fight off the challenge. Although he had played for England, I don’t think he was technically as good a bowler as Reg Carter. If we had been able to retain his services, Reg could have been a good foil for me over many years. As the 1961 season began, Edwin had spent around six of the previous nine months with his left hand and arm in plaster. While his scaphoid, the largest of the carpal bones in the wrist, was thankfully mended, the enforced inactivity left him not quite the bowler he had been. His county did reasonably well, finishing seventh in the table, but for Edwin it was a summer of frustration. In the club’s yearbook for the following year, Donald Carr commented that ‘Smith only rarely troubled batsmen on good wickets’. The economy rate was still good, but there were only 46 Setbacks at the start of the Swinging Sixties