Full name Donald Victor Smith Name Donald Smith National side English | Bowling style Left-arm medium Batting style Left-hand bat Role Cricket Player | |
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Born 14 June 1923 (age 100) ( 1923-06-14 ) Broadwater, Sussex, England | ||
Donald Victor Smith (born 14 June 1923) is an English former cricketer, who played in three Tests for England in 1957. He was born in Broadwater, Sussex, England. The cricket writer, Colin Bateman, commented that "Sri Lanka's historic first victory over England early in 1993 will have given at least one English Test player a certain amount of satisfaction. Don Smith, a steady left-handed opener capable of some useful seam bowling, became Sri Lanka's national coach in the late 1980s".
Life and career
An all-rounder who played for Sussex as a left-handed batsman and, later in his career, a left arm medium pacer, he scored over 1,500 runs in 1950 to establish himself in their first team. Equally adept at opening the batting, or scoring runs in the middle order as required, Smith's bowling blossomed at the age of 32 when he took 73 wickets, and more good form in 1957, saw him selected for England against the West Indies. Although he found little success in his three Tests against them (amassing 25 runs in four innings), he did score 147 for his county against the tourists, and finished the 1957 season with 2088 runs and five centuries.
After retiring from playing cricket in 1962, he became the coach and groundsman at Lancing College, before coaching Sri Lanka in their early days of Test cricket. Smith later emigrated to Australia. On the death of Reg Simpson in November 2013, he became the oldest living English Test cricketer.