The Last Corinthian

Martin Chandler | 8:44am BST 30 July 2023

Published: 2023
Pages: 288
Author: Thompson, Mike
Publisher: Pitch
Rating: 3.5 stars

Ten years ago one of the very best books in the generally excellent ACS Lives in Cricket series appeared, No Ordinary Man, written by Douglas Miller on the subject of Mike Smith, generally and affectionately referred to by his initials, MJK.

MJK gave freely of his time to Miller, and whilst No Ordinary Man is most definitely a biography rather than an autobiography, it would have been nothing like the book it is had it not been so strongly supported by its octogenarian subject.

Against that background I assumed I had read the last word on MJK. But I was wrong, and a decade on MJK lent his enthusiastic support to another biographer, Mike Thompson. It would of course be counter-intuitive to suggest that through his eighties enough happened in MJK’s life to justify another book, so what is the reason for this one?

One of the strengths of Miller’s book is that it is as much about MJK the man as it is about the cricketer, something Thompson, whilst recognising the quality of his predecessor’s work, felt left the door open for him to have a second bite of the cherry.

Having established that much from the preliminaries to The Last Corinthian I will admit to being a little fearful as to what I was about to read. There is nothing more tedious in cricketing biography than a match by match report of a man’s career that relies on little more than describing matches via their scorecards and contemporary reports. Sometimes the reason for that is laziness on an author’s part, on other occasions it is inevitable because the events being described took place so long ago, but either way the result is seldom an inspiring read.

It is however a pleasure to report that my concerns are not reflected in Thompson’s narrative. That is not because the book is not, essentially, a year on year look at MJK’s career, as it most certainly is. The reason why the trap has been avoided is in part because of MJK’s involvement and the many insights that alone provides. But it is not only MJK who freely gave of his time to Thompson. Others included Warwickshire teammates Dennis Amiss, Jim Stewart, Alan Smith, David Brown, John Jameson and Bob Barber not to mention, for the higher stage, most of the great Test cricketers of MJK’s era who are still with us.

MJK was not, at Test level anyway, a great batsman, but he did play in as many as 50 Tests, leading England in 25 of them including on tour to India, South Africa and Australia. If his batting average was a modest 31.63 he was universally respected as leader.

A blow by blow account of county cricket for, largely, Warwickshire in the 1960s is not, however well written, going to appeal to a particularly wide audience. I should after that comment add, in case there is any doubt, that the tapping of the memories of so many who were there does mean the chapters devoted to MJK’s career outside the Test arena are interesting as well as well written. But what significantly broadens the interest in The Last Corinthian are the chapters dealing with MJK’s Test career, and particularly those overseas tours.

MJK’s two trips to the sub-continent, in 1961/62 and 1963/64, never were the subject of books, and no one has written at length about England’s tours to the Caribbean in 1959/60, South Africa in 1964/65 and Australian in 1965/66 since those series took place. So this one is a valuable book simply for examining those long forgotten ventures, particularly as that is done with input from MJK and others.

The Last Corinthian, being concerned with MJK’s cricketing life, I had expected to conclude with a season by season statistical record of his career, and it is slightly disappointing that none of the three statistical appendices contain that. On the other hand the book is well illustrated, and has a decent index. For anyone interested in English cricket in the 1960s the book is certainly recommended, and having already read No Ordinary Man the existence of that one is no barrier to enjoyment of The Last Corinthian. The converse does not follow however, and I anticipate that anyone who reads and enjoys Mike Thompson’s book is going to want to get hold of a copy of Douglas Miller’s book, although sadly for them that is long out of print and not, as far as I can see and unlike a number of their titles, available from the ACS in electronic form.