Edward Thomas Smith (born 19 July 1977) is an English author and journalist, former professional

cricketer Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

, and cricket commentator. He played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

for

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Prematurely retiring from professional cricket due to injury in 2008, at the age of only 31, he became an author and journalist and in 2013 he joined the BBC's '' Test Match Special'' as a commentator for

The Ashes The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. The term originated in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, ''The Sporting Times'', immediately after Australia's 1882 victory at The Oval, its first Te ...

series against

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Smith was England's national selector from 2018 until 2021, when the role was abolished.

Early life

Smith was born in Pembury, Kent. He attended Yardley Court and

Tonbridge School (God Giveth the Increase) , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day and boarding , religion = , president = , head_label ...

where he was in the dayboy house Welldon House and his father, novelist Jonathan Smith, taught English for most of his career. He went on to

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...

to read history and earned a full

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...

playing for the university cricket team. He scored a

century A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

on his first-class debut for Cambridge University Cricket Club in 1996 and graduated with a

double first The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...

despite devoting much of his time to cricket.

Cricket

Smith played three home

Test matches Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

for

against

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

in 2003. He made 64 on debut, but scored only 23 runs in his next four

innings An innings is one of the divisions of a cricket match during which one team takes its turn to bat. Innings also means the period in which an individual player bats (acts as either striker or nonstriker). Innings, in cricket, and rounders, is bot ...

, and was dropped for the subsequent tour of the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

. Smith was a tall right-handed batsman with a penchant for the drive and represented

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and

. During thirteen seasons of first-class cricket, he scored 34 centuries. He hit a peak in 2003, scoring 135, 0, 122, 149, 113, 203, 36, 108 and 32 for Kent in July of that year. He averaged 72.99 for the 2003 first-class season when he was selected for England. He left his native county following the 2004 season and joined Middlesex for 2005. He captained the county for two seasons during 2007 and 2008. After missing most of the 2008 season due to an ankle injury, Smith announced his retirement later that year. In 2012, Smith became a commentator for the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

's '' Test Match Special''. He continued to play cricket as an amateur on the Authors XI team, which is composed of British authors and journalists, and contributed a chapter to the team's book ''The Authors XI: A Season of English Cricket from Hackney to Hambledon''.

Literary career

Smith's first book, ''Playing Hard Ball'', describes his interest in the game, psychology, history and mythology of American baseball and compares it to cricket. His diary of the

2003 season 3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious or cultural significance in many societie ...

, ''On and Off the Field'', was named the 2005 Wisden Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the

William Hill Sports Book of the Year The William Hill Sports Book of the Year is an annual British sports literary award sponsored by bookmaker William Hill. The award is dedicated to rewarding excellence in sports writing. It was first awarded in 1989, and was devised by Graham ...

and The Cricket Society Book of the Year Award in 2004. In ''Luck: What it Means and Why it Matters'' (2012) Smith examines the concepts of luck, fortune, destiny and fate in sport and beyond. Smith is also a regular columnist and contributed cricket book reviews for the ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

'' and history book reviews for the ''

Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...

''. He wrote a weekly column for the ''

New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...

''. In July 2016, Smith was accused of

plagiarism Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and thought ...

in an article he wrote for

ESPNcricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a ...

. The article was subsequently removed from the website, with editor-in-chief

Sambit Bal Sambit Bal is an Indian journalist who was born and brought up in Bhubaneswar, India. He spent 15 years in mainstream journalism working in some of India's leading publishing houses before joining Wisden in 2001. He was the first editor of ''Wisde ...

noting that the article "bore striking similarities to parts of a piece published in the ''Economist'' a few days prior".

Bibliography

* Smith, E.T. (2003) ''Playing Hard Ball''.

Abacus Books Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily ...

. * Smith, Ed (2005). ''On and Off the Field''.

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Bloomsbury Publishing Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a U ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Ed 1977 births Living people Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge Cambridge University cricketers English male journalists England Test cricketers Kent cricketers Middlesex cricket captains People educated at Tonbridge School People from Pembury English cricket commentators British Universities cricketers Middlesex cricketers