Summer Sports - Cricket
about the present and future health of UK sport and lets us ponder this notion of good luck, or rather the “good fortune” of growing up in an environment that allows the seeds of sporting prowess to flower. Ed started playing cricket
competitively aged just eight, having watched Kent with his dad from very early on. Whilst Kent was his team, his hero was Yorkshireman and cricket icon Geoffrey Boycott, a man he was drawn to not solely for his cricketing excellence. In his book he writes: “Even as a child, I sensed there was something in Boycott that was different - an application of willpower, an elimination of error, an unbendingness and relentlessness. ”I think all those traits appealed deeply to my over-developed sense of rationality and ambition. Could a child possibly sense in a hero something of himself? It sounds silly, doesn’t it? But I think it is true.” Ed progressed from Kent schools - scoring 100 on his debut - to Cambridge University, where he graduated with a double first in history, after becoming the youngest ever Cambridge undergraduate to score a century on his first class debut,
aged eighteen. Cricket for the Kent professional team followed and, in 1999, he became a full- time professional cricketer with the county club when still only 21. He played professional cricket for 13 years, at Kent and then for Middlesex, where he captained the first eleven in 2007 and 2008. Ed took the field for England in three Tests, before he was forced to retire after breaking his ankle in 2008. Taking a quick break from a busy calendar, now dominated by press, TV and radio commitments, Ed mulled over some of the most pressing issues he addresses in ‘Luck’, commenting on everything from his time at Tonbridge School, the shift in focus of school sports, his experiences with groundsmen and what he thinks is the answer to help redress this trend of private school dominance in top-flight sport. Luck may have been an unthinkable title for a book written by a younger Ed Smith, who was largely dismissive of the notion in achieving success. He waxes lyrical about how superstition dictated his early life and his entry to university in 1996. Once, he wouldn’t have
considered his rise to the top as lucky at all, but the benefit of hindsight and experience led him to contend that his upbringing helped expose him to a level of quality in cricketing provision that helped hone his game. “When you’re young, you never really acknowledge that you’re in some way lucky, especially if you’re a child growing up in the kind of surroundings that I did at Tonbridge School.” “You take a lot for granted and assume that what you have is the norm. In the case of my school, it was the unrivalled quality of the cricketing surface that I just didn’t comprehend when I was a student.” “At Tonbridge, we had ten grass nets, ten synthetic turf nets and, come the weekend, the wicket was always in pristine condition, which was testament to the then head groundsman, George Alexander.” Ed hadn’t appreciated that the wickets at his disposal - blessed with pace and surrounded by an immaculate outfield - would help lay the foundations for his rise to the top. It was only when he reached elite level that he was able to fully understand just how formative the
Lord’s - the home of cricket - and Ed Smith for four years, two of them as Middlesex captain © Claire Skinner
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