David Smith

It is a sure sign of your own advancing age when your childhood heroes pass. So it is my sadness in todays news of the death of David (DHK) Smith, who played for the County between 1965 and 1970.

Born in Shipley, West Yorkshire, he came from a tough school in the northern leagues and one usually felt that boundaries were grudgingly hit. He slotted smoothly into the lineage of John Kelly, Charlie Lee, Ian Hall and Alan Hill, players who, it might be said, all batted against the sundial, rather than the clock.

Yet every side needs such a player and watching the travails of England in Australia one pines for sound defensive technique, knowledge of the ball to leave and the one to play quietly away. Nudging and nurdling worked well for those players, thirty a session, a hundred by the close if it was their day, making opponents work if it wasn't. 

David Smith had plenty of good days and in the late '60s and 1970 his opening partnership with Peter Gibbs was one of contrasts. Peter was all about classical drives and sound clips off the legs, while David was more functional, substance over style. The two became a sound pairing, paving the way neatly, in my favourite cricket summer of 1970, for the more expansive play of Mike Page and Chris Wilkins. 

He really became established between 1967 and 1970 and scored a thousand runs in three of those four years. There was rarely anything flashy, as it wasn't his way, but his role in the side was clear and he did it very well indeed. His was a wicket seldom given away. 

Edwin Smith told me a lovely story about a typically gritty, unbeaten 91 in 120 overs of graft against Glamorgan at Chesterfield in 1967. The visiting side's batsman, Peter Walker, later a television commentator, was unimpressed and vocal at the lack of aggression, especially when his namesake Edwin later scored an unbeaten 60 in no time, as Derbyshire made 'only' 221-7 declared in their first innings 

Yet the visitors made only 119 all out in 93 overs, Smith and Morgan taking 8-47 between them in 57 overs!  David almost had the last laugh, the visitors hanging on for grim life on the last afternoon, the last pair together when time was called. 

I said rarely flashy, but there was a Sunday game at Ilkeston in 1970, when we were chasing a tricky (in those days) score of 155. Barry Richards had breezed 40-odd, but runs hadn't come easy and visitors Hampshire had three international bowlers in 'Butch' White, Bob Cottam and Derek Shackleton, as well as two wily ones in Peter Sainsbury and Trevor Jesty. 

That afternoon, it didn't matter. Smith slog swept and pulled his way to an exhilarating, swashbuckling 85, as Derbyshire won in a canter with more than ten overs to spare. It was one of those rare days of total domination, Chris Wilkins finishing it in his usual style with a four and six from the only two balls he faced. 

At the end of that season David left the county game, bar for a one-day game in 1971. He played a couple more in the late 1970s for Orange Free State in South Africa, but like a few others at that time, he left the county far too soon, a career outside the game more lucrative and reliable. 

He will be remembered as a friendly man, one with a fund of stories and soundly appreciated by his team mates, as both a dogged, reliable bat and a good slip, as befits a man who kept wicket. 

Rest in Peace, David. You always gave of your best.