Lives in Cricket No 40 - Edwin Smith

93 Chapter Sixteen Match-winning captain Nineteen sixty-eight marked the retirement of Brian Jackson, after six years of service and exemplary bowling. He was underrated, destined to live in the shadow of his namesake, Les, but a very fine bowler, as Edwin explains. He had the ability to produce a ball that was unplayable. He called it his ‘instant hob-shatterer’ and even if a batsman was well set and the wicket doing nothing, Brian could conjure up this special ball that would make those coming next wonder what on earth was happening. Jackson was no athlete and was a genuine tail-ender with no pretensions to batting. He also admitted to ‘vagrancy’ in the field, but all was forgiven as he maintained the long tradition of Derbyshire seam bowling. Life was never easy for opposition batsmen when Jackson ran in from the lake end at Chesterfield, lending outstanding support to Harold Rhodes from the pavilion end. While figures never give the full value of a man, 457 wickets at under 19 confirmed that Brian Jackson was a very good bowler indeed. Harold Rhodes led the wicket-taking once more, with 99 Championship wickets at 17, but while Peter Eyre lent solid support, the rest of the seam attack suffered injuries, otherwise Derbyshire’s final position would have been higher than eighth. The scoring of points changed, an inducement being made towards more aggressive batting. Sides could now earn one point for every 25 runs they scored over the first 150 in the first 85 overs of their first innings. In the field, there was one point to be earned for every two wickets in those 85 overs. Previously, the battle for first innings ascendancy had produced attritional cricket, with a conclusive result sometimes almost an afterthought. The rationale was that batsmen and bowlers would now be more positive. Only two sides earned more batting points than Derbyshire in a summer in which the top six batsmen all passed a thousand Championship runs. With Peter Eyre and Edwin each contributing well down the order, the side batted better than for several seasons. As the lone spinner, Edwin’s workload was substantial and he bowled over 900 overs in the County Championship. His 88 wickets represented his second most prolific season and there were seven five-wicket hauls. The stand out was against Sussex at Chesterfield, where despite Edwin’s