FOR SUCH an accomplished cricketer, Sydney Gordon Smith has left a surprisingly pale imprint on the game's history. This may be partly owing to the fact that although he represented two countries – West Indies and New Zealand– he did so before either was elevated to Test match status. Likewise, he performed minor miracles for his adopted county, but Northamptonshire was a definite backwater just before the First World War, and consequently he rarely hit the headlines.

He was not a dramatic player, although he could certainly be assertive on the field if the occasion demanded. His public persona, however, was rather downbeat. Tall, erect and spare, he stares out from the photographs of the day, sharp-featured and unsmiling, with typical Smithsonian anonymity. It was a half-seriously suggested at the time that his surname did not help his cause.

But Smith's career statistics leave no doubt as to his quality – 10,290 runs (at 31.28) and 955 wickets (at 18.08). He could deliver left-arm slows with all the subtle destructiveness of Rhodes or Blythe. His batting was less classical. Often dourly determined, he nevertheless sometimes struck out with surprising, wiry power. He was obviously a considerable all-rounder. It was just that the personal magnetism was a little less than Bothamesque.

 S. G. Smith's entry into the big-time was memorable enough. He returned match figures of 16 for 85 (9 for 34 and 7 for 51) for All West Indies against R. A. Bennett's English tourists at the Queen's Park Oval in his native Trinidad in 1901-02. Bennett's team comprised mainly amateurs wintering in gentlemanly style, but there were some good county players in that haul: F. L. Fane, E. W. Dillon, B. J. T. Bosanquet, E. M. Dowson. And even if the pitch was `materially helpful' he did nevertheless extract more from it than Bosanquet, Rockley Wilson and Dowson managed for the Englishmen. The colony was proud of its son, and Gordon Grant & Co, where he worked as a clerk, made a presentation. Smith replied in his `usual modest manner', and doubtless pondered his future away from cricket's mainstream.

The chance for Smith to test his mettle to the full came four years later with the second West Indian touring side to England. His start was auspicious, for his first wicket on English soil was that of W. G. Grace. W G, then 57, reciprocated later in the match.

In all matches on that tour, some first-class, some not, Smith took 116 wickets (19.3), but he had to labour long and hard for them. Despite a physique that was hardly of workhorse proportions, Smith sent down one-third of the total overs bowled by that team and impressed many a good judge in doing so. A. E. Knight, for instance, though that `he varied both pace and flight cleverly, came with the arm and also broke away after the ordinary fashion of the left-hander, while he (also) bowled a swinging ball.'

 S. G. Smith played for Trinidad, Northamptonshire and Auckland in the days before inter-continental travel became almost commonplace.

By way of relaxation Smith also topped the tour batting averages in all matches with 1107 runs (33.5). There were successive centuries against Hampshire and South Wales. Knight admired his `wristy cutting' and a `splendid push-shot, half-cut and half-drive, that owed nothing to strength but everything to perfect timing.'

 West Indies won the final match of the 1906 tour, at Northampton, with ease, Smith taking 6 for 39 and 6 for 60. The `Cobblers' were suitably impressed, and after the requisite two-year qualification period Smith commenced his County Championship career for them in 1909. It was a six-year association during which the county scaled heights that were not regained until the mid- 1950s.

By the beginning of the 1909 season, Northants' reputation was not high. Admitted to the Championship only in 1905, they had subsequently played 70 matches, winning only 11 and losing 44. And such success as they had depended heavily on the form and durability of their yeoman all-rounder George Thompson, who was `being worked to death'.

The 1909 season was one of unalloyed success for Smith, and he became the first man to do the double in his debut season. He certainly began to attract attention, but it was not always well-informed, as when a newspaper requested the club to provide `a photo of your new black man'. Whether blue-eyed, fair-skinned Smith was amused is not recorded.

With Thompson responding with his best-ever bowling season, Northants finished seventh in 1909, up from 15th in 1908. By 1912 they were second in the Championship, having pushed Yorkshire hard for the title. From being regarded as `Thompson plus 10 others' they had become a force in the land.

 Smith's personal highlights with Northants included 204, in 4 1/2 hours, against Gloucestershire in 1910 and four wickets in four balls against Warwickshire in 1914. It was, perhaps, almost inevitable that the first three of those wickets were to catches by G. J. Thompson.

By 1914, Smith, then 33, was at his peak. His performances that summer, both for Northants, whom he captained, and in two representative matches at Lord's, ensured his elevation as one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year.

In reporting the showpiece event of 1914, the MCC South Africa Team v The Rest, staged to celebrate the Lord's centenary, that the Sunday Chronicle enthused over the subtlety of Smith's bowling, especially the way that he `diddled' Wilfred Rhodes: `Rhodes had made some profit out of well-pitched-up balls on the off side. Then, without any obvious sign of change, came a ball a little wider, a little shorter, a little slower – a little, such a very little, too little for the batsman to detect the difference. The sequel was a soft catch by mid-off. And Rhodes is a very old bird to be taken like that.'

 Smith's batting in that match was though by the Sunday Chronicle to have been `eminently practical', with `no frills', but, on the other hand, `no rough edges', with strokes that were `easy and unforced'.

That most poignant season was

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