MY DREAM XI
SMITH’s DREAM XI
Welcome to our new, expanded, illustrated presentation with statistical summaries of the selected players
1. Nick Knight
Nick came from Essex with a degree of promise and I think he went on to average 50 with Warwickshire. He played all the formats, which if you relate it to modern day there aren’t too many who do that. His greatest asset was his concentration and his desire to bat for a long time. He may not have been technically the best left-hander, but there’s a lot of him in Alastair Cook.
2. Andy Moles
If you needed someone to go out and frustrate the life out of an opening attack on the first morning of a game, there was no one better than him. There were some wonderful overseas bowlers at that time, but Allan Donald aside, if they don’t have any joy early on many of them would lose interest. Andy would love wearing them down. Best of all, he always knew where to find the best curry houses!
3. Dennis Amiss
I grew up watching him and had the honour of playing alongside him for a season. Because my father Mike was on the staff when he came through as a very young man, through his relationship with my old man, he understood the responsibility of helping players who were first starting out.
4. Brian Lara
In 1994 he scored seven hundreds in eight innings – I’d never seen anything like him before. He was just in a different league, you couldn’t bowl at him. I remember batting with him to save a game against Leicestershire, our rivals for the County Championship, and he just manipulated the ball so well. I didn’t have to face a ball for three overs. He scored 120 not out in a winning chase of 206-7.
5. Ian Bell
I was skipper when we gave Belly his debut at 17 years of age.We were very aware of who he was and what he could become even then – a special talent. Everybody would agree, when you see Ian play well he is as elegant a batsman as there can be. Hopefully he will have three or four more top years and bring success back to Warwickshire.
6. Ashley Giles
The determination to be the best he could possibly be was obvious. His rate of improvement in the couple of years before he got called up to the England side was tremendous. When he got there people called him a wheelie bin, but would we have him in there now? Yes. He also scored runs lower down the order. The batting does get worse from here though, hopefully the top five will have scored enough runs!
7. Keith Piper
God bless him, Keith had his failings but he could match almost anyone in history as a gloveman. When we were successful he took so many catches behind the stumps for the three seamers who make an appearance in this list.
8. Norman Gifford
Like Dennis, I played with Norman very early in my career. I remember playing a Sunday League game in Swansea and he bowled eight overs for 12 runs, even at his age by then he could land it on a sixpence.
9. Allan Donald
The quickest bowler in England for eight or nine years. I was in the second team when he first came over and he couldn’t speak much English then, but he developed into a leader both on the field and off it. If he spoke in team meetings you would listen to him – not that he was a man of few words, but he’d always have something worth saying.
10. Tim Munton
A very fine bowler of medium pace - and we’d call him ‘Captain Sensible’, he would bridge the gap between the players and management. Early to bed most evenings, if he went out it was either Christmas or after we’d won three trophies!
11. Gladstone Small
Probably the most recognisable cricketer of his generation – he was the guy you wanted to know on a night out. He’d get you into any place as he seemed to be friends with everyone in the country. He could bowl quick too, of course!