Author: Douglas Miller
Published: 6 July 2013
Eighteenth on the list of first-class run-getters, Mike Smith is surely the most distinguished cricketer to whom no book has hitherto been devoted. Yet ‘MJK’ is not only a cricketer with 50 Test caps, 25 as captain, but the one man in the past hundred years to have represented England at both cricket and rugby union. First making his mark at Oxford, he stands alone as a centurion in three Varsity matches, and it was also at the University that his half-back partnership with the scrum-half Onllwyn Brace broke the mold of conventional rugby.
The most prolific county batsman of his era, in 1959 Mike became the youngest player to exceed 3,000 runs in an English season. Captain of Warwickshire for 11 years, he led MCC on three major overseas tours. After a brief retirement, he was recalled to the Test side in 1972, withstanding better than his England colleagues the onslaught of Bob Massie at Lord’s.
For many years Mike owned and ran a hotel and country club with ten squash courts. Later, as chairman of Warwickshire, he saw his county – with his own son on the team – enjoy unparalleled success on the field but still find problems off it.
A man of unfailing good humour, but one who shuns publicity, Mike Smith owes his popularity as a leader to his refusal to claim special privileges. As his friend Bob Barber says, ‘all he ever wanted is to be an ordinary bloke’ – but MJK is most emphatically ‘no ordinary man’.
