Lives in Cricket No 40 - Edwin Smith

75 Brian was a very fine bowler. He was no relation to Les, even if a few people around the country thought he was his son! John Arlott described him as bowling a ‘grudging length’ and he was an aggressive bowler. With his high, whirlwind action and decent pace he became an admirable foil for Harold and there were few better opening pairs in the country over the following seasons. He was another spotted by Cliff Gladwin in the North Staffordshire League and he took a lot of wickets for Derbyshire over the following seasons. Skipper Charlie Lee identified the batting as the source of the problems and only three players passed the thousand run mark, the highest average being only 29. It was a transitional year and a very poor one, as Edwin explains. Brian did well, but we realised in 1963 how important Les had been. So many times he took out the top order, had a breather, then came back to demolish the tail. When Cliff Gladwin retired, if anything Les got better. He would just bowl and bowl. One day he took his boots off at the end of the day and one of his socks was covered in blood. He explained that it was a nasty blister that had burst, but when the captain said he should have told him about it, Les just replied ‘You asked me to bowl, skipper, so I bowled.’ In the match against the West Indies in 1963 at Chesterfield, I dropped Garfield Sobers at mid on, a fairly easy chance when Les was bowling. He just shrugged his shoulders and bowled him later in the same over. Nothing ever worried him. If you combine his stamina, accuracy and hostility over a long career, I don’t think I have ever seen a better bowler. He wasn’t orthodox and his action wasn’t something you would teach a young player, but he was so effective. It was one of those years. We had lost Cliff Gladwin, Les Jackson, Arnold Hamer, Donald Carr, George Dawkes and John Kelly in five seasons and you just don’t replace that quality and experience overnight. Edwin suffered from the general malaise but scored a career-best 664 runs that summer at an average of just over 16. His 38 Championship wickets were not a true reflection of the way that he had bowled; several match reports refer to him ‘bowling without luck’. In the Gillette Cup, Derbyshire started with a narrow first round win over Hampshire at Bournemouth, by six runs. Having won the toss, the home side sent Derbyshire in and with Ian Hall making 61 and Derek Morgan an unbeaten 59 they totalled 250 all out in their 65 overs. Good fielding effected four run outs in the reply, although Mike Barnard, batting at three, anchored the innings with 98. While Les Jackson’s 15 overs went for just 24 runs, Edwin bowled at the end of the innings and Bottom