Robin Smith's stunted metamorphosis 

Some of us were brilliant batsmen, some great bowlers, a few good wicket keepers or even ingenious fielders. Ifs and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers! The famous idiom almost sounded like a patented Sidhuism, didn't it? Coming to the point, however, I write this out of great passion and with a heavy heart at the same time. Passion because I love this player. Heavy heart because I’d have loved this player to have played on some more.

Today I’d like to talk about a batsman who had the potential to be sovereign. Sovereign he was, but his name could have been taken in the same breath as some of the legends of our times. He had the talent that most cricketers would aspire to have. Such was the case of one of my favourite cricketers, Robin Smith.

Burly, stylish and extremely languid when he got going, Robin Smith did strike terror on more than a few occasions. That a player of his stature played just 62 tests and 71 ODIs was of great mortification. What’s more hurtful is the fact that, with numbers that were more than seemly, the South African wasn’t given his full due.

There is a thing about the Englishmen not going full throttle in playing limited over international cricket. I wonder why? In Smith’s case, he could have been great in both formats. Just look at his numbers and you would imagine he got a raw deal. Especially playing in an era where arguably batting was a lot more difficult than that of today.

Smith was one of those players who was made of steel. Look at those forearms. The square cut was just meant to be hit the way Smith did. I mean, Ravi Shastri would find it difficult to say ‘tracer bullet’ before the ball reached the boundary off Smith’s bat. But more than his might, Smith was gifted at being able to score fast and at the same time had the tenacity to grind it out. If ever you witnessed that 167 not out against Australia, at Edgbaston, you would have rated that right on top of great ODI knocks.

Though his numbers are really above par, the one blip you could spot was the conversion of his 50s to 100s which leaves him stranded at scoring a 100 every 7 tests whereas you would have expected that to be somewhere in the range of a 5. But like I said, it is one of those rare blips. His 50+ frequency, however, if were to be considered, was right up there amongst the best. He scored a 50+ once in 3 innings. His ODI numbers also make for good reading with an average, just a shade under 40. Even in his penultimate game in the ’96 Wills WC in the subcontinent, he scored a 75.

What I am trying to get at is, Smith talks for a plethora of players world over who haven’t realised their full potential. These could be partially because of their own follies but predominantly because of the way they were handled.

A player who has played over 426 first class games, and 443 List A right until he turned 40, was certainly not the one who would have decided to call it quits in international cricket. To me as a cricket connoisseur, these incidents are more painful than a few other obvious ones. I hope you had a good read folks and like I always sign off, cricket is the reason I breathe and we all have our favourites. Your comments are more than welcome for a healthy debate.