by Arunabha Sengupta
March 1955.
Jamaica were struggling at 69 for 4 against Miller, Lindwall, Johnston and Davidson when the 21-year-old walked in. He had already captured 4 wickets that included Harvey and Morris. Now he counterattacked without any visible fear or effort to compile a majestic 169.
Five days later, he was batting on his Test debut at Sabina Park, scoring a patient 44 in the first innings, adding 138 with Clyde Walcott. He had walked in at 101 for 5 in response to 515. West Indies followed on and in the second innings Collie Smith was sent in at No 3 with the score reading 20 for 1. He hit 104 pristine runs, caning Lindwall, Miller, Ron Archer, Johnston and Benaud along the way.
On the eve of the second Test at Port of Spain, Smith roomed with another youngster, a 18-year-old called Garry Sobers. Youngsters both, they had quietly slipped away to have an early night. At around midnight there was thumping on the door. A pair of Australian voices barked that they knew they were in there, and they would break down the door if they were not let in.
Nervously the lads opened the door. There stood the old duo of Miller and Lindwall, drinks in hand, eager to have a drink and a chat.
While they sipped, Miller turned to Smith. “You scored a hundred against us for Jamaica, and then a hundred in the last Test. Everyone loves you and thinks you are a hero. You may get a pair here and you’ll see the change and the difference.”
Fatherly advice? Or was it clever gamesmanship? We will never know.
In the Test Smith was bowled by Benaud for a duck in the first innings and snicked Archer to Langley for another blob in the second.
This much was clear that the great fast bowling pair took young Smith very seriously.
And rightly so. Four years down the line Smith was still only 26 and had more than a thousand runs in Tests and 48 wickets.
And then then there was that other night alongside Sobers.
Smith was playing for Burnley in the Lancashire League. He had recently scored a triple hundred against Lowerhouse. Sobers played for Radcliffe. Medium-fast bowler Dewdney ran in for Darwen. The three met that September evening in Manchester, at the house of a Bajan fan. After a jovial dinner, and some fruitless hours waiting for Roy Gilchrist, they set out to drive south to London.
Smith took the wheels of Sobers’s Ford Perfect, then handed it to Dewdney. In the wee hours, it was Sobers who drove, Dewdney sat in the passenger seat, and Smith slept in the back. Speeding along A34 near Stone in Straffordshire. they collided with a 10-ton cattle truck.
Dewdney suffered facial cuts and lost some teeth. Sobers dislocated bone in his wrist, had a cut eye and a severed nerve in a finger. Smith damaged his spinal cord.
Three days later a priest walked into the hospital room in which both Sobers and Dewdney were lying, and started talking about the whims of fate, life, uncertainties and tragedies. And then he revealed that Collie Smith was dead.
He had all the makings of becoming a giant of West Indian cricket. The runs remained unscored, the wickets unclaimed, the life unlived. But he did sparkle enough to spread joy and brilliance in his brief career.
Collie Smith was born on May 5, 1933.