Farewell to M.J.K. Smith, the Harborough District's England captain

The former England cricket captain M.J.K. "Mike" Smith died yesterday at the age of 92. He was a middle-order batsman with Leicestershire and then Warwickshire, and also a rugby union player. He won a single England cap was at fly half against Wales in 1956, making him the last man to play both sports for England.

His Guardian obituary says:

His even-tempered approach was one of the keys to his success as a skipper not just with England, whom he led between 1964 and 1966, but with his county, which he captained from 1957 to 1967. 

Although the product of a traditional public school and Oxbridge background, he was unusual for the time in having a classless accent, an egalitarian outlook and a relaxed attitude to convention. Rank and file players loved him for it, and would do anything to support his cause.

The Guardian also reveals that Smith was the son of a Leicestershire hosiery manufacturer and grew up in Broughton Astley, a village in the Harborough District.

I would say that Smith's test career was before my time, but when I was a boy the England selectors loved their recalls. So, six years after his last cap, Smith was picked to play in the first three tests of the 1972 home Ashes series.

His batting made no impression on me, but I do remember a catch he took on the boundary. It was on the second day of the series and dismissed the Australian captain Ian Chappell first ball off a bouncer from Tony Greig. You can see the catch in the video above.

Later. There are some nice tributes in Smith's Cricinfo obituary – he was the England manager on Atherton's 1994-5 Ashes tour:

Mike Atherton, who captained that tour, paid tribute to Smith in The Times. "MJK's good humour and easygoing demeanour was a wonderful antidote to the occasional stress and pressure I felt as captain," he wrote. "He was utterly unpretentious and saw cricket for what it was – which is to say not a matter of life and death."

Geoffrey Boycott, England's former opener who played alongside Smith in 18 Tests between 1964 and 1972, wrote in the Telegraph that he had "a great sense of humour, no edge and was never officious. He was just a good man, a good gentle guy and you wanted him to do well. He gave you freedom to play and was not a martinet."