Cricket star Smith has a field day picking winners
EAVESDROP on Hampshire cricket all-rounder Will Smith and you might jump to the wrong conclusion if he uses the words ‘length’ and ‘poundage’. He is not necessarily talking about where he pitches the off-breaks that made him a valuable contributor in last summer’s T20, or the weight of his new bat. The 32-year-old is just as likely to be explaining his analysis of an afternoon’s runners.
A new three-year deal has just been signed with his county but Smith is planning for a longer-term future which he hopes will be played out on a different form of turf.
On Wednesday he was the studio expert for subscription channel Racing UK, interpreting the action from Nottingham and Warwick.
During the winter months, Smith can also be found offering useful advice to punters via William Hill radio.
Smith has scored more than 7,000 first- class runs, won four County Championship medals ( three with Durham and one with Nottinghamshire) and was a member of the Hampshire team which won this year’s Division Two to gain promotion. But he has an equal passion for horseracing.
He said: ‘My father used to take me and my older brother to Towcester every Boxing Day and Easter Monday. I loved everything about a racecourse, the atmosphere, the smells. I was five or six and it got me hooked.
‘Throughout my teenage years I always studied the form in the hope of making a pound or two. I have always had an analytical mind so I enjoyed that side of it.
‘ Two winters ago, I was coming into the last year of my contract with Durham. It was up in the air whether I would get another deal because of their financial troubles.
‘I thought I might have to do something else so I thought “what do I have a passion for?”’
The cricketer, who captained Durham as they retained their title in the 2009 season, said: ‘I pestered the (RUK) producer with emails and didn’t let him have a moment’s peace because I was so keen. I love doing the punditry. It is ideally where I would like to be once the cricket finishes even if, hopefully, that is another six or seven years down the line.’
Smith (left, blasting a six for Hampshire), who took three for 15 when a losing semi-finalist in the T20 finals in August, has a cricket pedigree as rich as some of the racehorses he analyses. His fielding skills earned him a stint as a substitute fielder for England while on the Notts staff and, prior to playing for British Univer- sities, he captained current England skipper Alastair Cook while they were contemporaries at Bedford School.
Smith said: ‘He was 4ft 2in and I don’t think his voice had broken but you could tell he had a bit of talent. I was No 3 and Alastair opened with James Stedman, who went on to play hockey for England.
‘ They put on numerous double hundred partnerships so I spent a lot of my time with my pads on not doing a lot.’
Smith, married to Catherine with two daughters, Ava, three, and Daisy, six months, believes his interest in racing acts as a useful diversion from the demands of the county circuit.
He said: ‘If you are just watching the cricket you become a little too intense about it, or I do anyway. Also at night time you just want to switch off.
‘ I go out for a meal with team-mates and then can sit back and watch the racing I have missed and catch up on the form.’
Another result at Hampshire suggests Smith has not given his team- mates too many losing tips — he was voted Players’ Player of the Year for 2014.