William Alfred Smith (29 September 1900 – 6 January 1990) was an English

cricket 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 str ...

er. Smith was a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the cricket ball, ball with a cricket bat, bat to score runs (cricket), runs and prevent the dismissal (cricket), loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since Septembe ...

who bowled right-arm

fast-medium Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. T ...

. He was born at

Corsham Corsham is a historic market town and civil parish in west Wiltshire, England. It is at the south-eastern edge of the Cotswolds, just off the A4 national route, southwest of Swindon, southeast of Bristol, northeast of Bath and southwest of ...

, Wiltshire. Smith made his debut in county cricket for

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

in the 1929 Minor Counties Championship against the Surrey Second XI. From 1929 to 1939, Smith made 89 appearances for Wiltshire in the Minor Counties Championship, the last of which came against

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...

. In his career with Wiltshire he took 387 wickets at an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...

of 16.84. In 1935, Smith made his first-class debut for a combined

Minor Counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

team against the touring

South Africans The population of South Africa is about 58.8 million people of diverse origins, cultures, languages, and religions. The South African National Census of 2022 was the most recent census held; the next will be in 2032. In 2011, Statistics South ...

at Richmond Drive, Skegness. Batting first, the South Africans made 394 all out, with Smith taking the wickets of Eric Rowan and Dudley Nourse, finishing with figures of 2/97 from 28 overs. Responding in their first-innings, the Minor Counties made 190 all out, during which Smith, who batted at number eleven, ended the innings

not out In cricket, a batter is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batter is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at t ...

on 7. Forced to

follow-on In the game of cricket, a team who batted second and scored significantly fewer runs than the team who batted first may be forced to follow-on: to take their second innings immediately after their first. The follow-on can be enforced by the team ...

in their second-innings, the Minor Counties made 224 all out, with Smith the last man out when he was dismissed for a single run by Arthur Langton. The South Africans reached their target in their second-innings for the loss of two wickets, with Smith taking both wickets to fall, those of Langton and Robert Williams, with figures of 2/10 from two overs. The following season he made a second and final first-class appearance for the Minor Counties against

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

at the

University Parks The Oxford University Parks, commonly referred to locally as the University Parks, or just The Parks, is a large parkland area slightly northeast of the city centre in Oxford, England. The park is bounded to the east by the River Cherwell, thou ...

. Batting first, the Minor Counties made 251 all out, with Smith the last man out when he was dismissed for 35 runs by Tristan Ballance. In response, Oxford University made 288 all out in their first-innings, with Smith playing a major part with the ball, taking five wickets to finish with figures of 5/95 from 35 overs. In their second-innings, the Minor Counties made 294 all out, with Smith again the last man out, this time dismissed for 4 runs, with Ballance again taking his wicket. Oxford University reached 23 without loss in their second-innings, with the match declared a draw. He died at Trowbridge, Wiltshire, on 6 January 1990. His younger brother,

Jim Jim or JIM may refer to: * Jim (given name), a given name * Jim, a diminutive form of the given name James * Jim, a short form of the given name Jimmy * OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism * ''Jim'' (comics), a series by Jim Woodring * ''Jim ...

, played

Test cricket Test cricket is a form of first-class cricket played at international level between teams representing full member countries of the International Cricket Council (ICC). A match consists of four innings (two per team) and is scheduled to last f ...

for

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 ...

References

External links

William Smith
at

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William Smith
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, William 1900 births 1990 deaths People from Corsham English cricketers Wiltshire cricketers Minor Counties cricketers