England's second-oldest Test cricketer (behind Micky Stewart) and former captain, Mike Smith, popularly known as MJK, aged 92, has died.
He was England captain for 25 of his 50 Tests, although he won only five of them but also lost only three. He was always a popular captain and even opposition players loved and respected him.
In the pre-helmet era, he never hesitated to field at short leg. He also achieved a feat now considered rare and was the last player to play both cricket and rugby union (one international against Wales in 1956) for England.
Smith was a better batsman than what the record reveals about him, scoring 2,278 runs in Tests at an average of 31, with only three hundreds. It should be added that, four times, he was dismissed in the nineties (99,99,98 and 96).However, he finds mention in the Wisden Almanac for having scored more than 25,000 runs in first-class cricket with 69 hundreds, predominantly for Warwickshire, with an overall figure of 39,832 first-class runs in 637 matches, the 18th-highest total of all time.
In 1959, MJK scored 3,245 first-class runs and at 26, was the youngest (left behind Ranjitsinhji) to record 3,000 plus runs in an English summer. In fact, he was the first player in a decade to cross 3,000. That summer, he also recorded his first Test hundred (against India at Old Trafford) and missed another as he was out for 98 at The Oval. Wisden named him one of their Five Cricketers of the Year.
He was England captain on the 1963-64 tour of India (a series in which India managed to save all five Tests) and remained captain until the first Test of the 1966 home series against West Indies. In a nutshell, his captaincy was always judged as fair and unselfish. The mantle of England’s oldest living captain is now passed on to Tony Lewis.
He retired in 1968 but made a comeback to play three Tests in the 1972 Ashes and was the top-scorer with 30 in the second innings at Lord’s, famous as Bob Massie’s Test. He later became a popular England team manager for Test tours and was awarded his OBE in 1976 for services to cricket.
He also became an ICC match referee (officiating in four Tests and 17 ODI) with the distinction of ICC’s first referee (in the Australia-India series of 1991-92) and was Warwickshire president from 1991 to 2003. This is considered as a golden era for the club, as they won seven major trophies, including back-to-back County Championship titles in 1994 and 1995.
The 1964 tour to India for him as a captain, in the absence of Dexter, who had made himself unavailable, presented many challenges, particularly marred by injuries and illness. So, a drawn series was a triumph for Smith, who averaged 51 in the Tests and presided over a happy side.
In 2019, Warwickshire unveiled the MJK Gates in his honour at Edgbaston during the first Test against Australia.
He is often credited for bringing Brian Lara to Warwickshire. While on manager duty of the England team to the Caribbean in 1994, he got the chance to see the young talent of Brian Lara and immediately recommended him to Warwickshire and a few days after that, Lara overtook the highest individual score of 365 not out of Gary Sobers during the Antigua Test of the series.
The club office forwarded Lara’s work permit to Smith. Even then, Lara almost missed going to England to play for Warwickshire as Smith had misplaced his work permit. Fortunately, he later found it rolled up in his pyjamas and Lara departed. In 1994, with Brian Lara on the club rolls, Warwickshire won three of the four competitions and lost in the final of the fourth.
In the third Test against New Zealand at Headingley in 1958, an unusual event took place. The England innings was opened by Mike Smith, a rugby international, and Arthur Milton, a football international.
His legacy continued through his son, Neil (NMK), an off-spinning all-rounder, who also captained Warwickshire and played a few ODIs (including in a World Cup) for England. For MJK, the proud moment was when Neil captained Warwickshire, the first time a father and son both captained the county. Smith’s daughter Carole married one of the great English middle-distance runners and Member of Parliament Sebastian Coe.
