Robin Smith with Rob Smyth (2019) — The Judge, London: Yellow Jersey Press

Robin Smith’s nickname may have started as a reference to his slightly static, wig-like curly hair, but surely stuck after it came to represent his aura at the crease: a strongman with big forearms, ready to pass judgement on wayward short-pitched bowling delivered by overexcited pacemen.

As a timid youngster with no mastery of any shots beyond the forward defensive, I found it fun back in the 90s to imitate Smith’s stance in the mirror, hammering his bat on the crease, chest puffed out, ready and willing to take on the fast bowlers (instead of the reality, as seen in net practice and actual matches: being scared of anyone with a run-up of even moderate length).

And yet fans of Mike Atherton’s England rarely saw the best of Smith, who had made his batting reputation in the late 80s and sealed it during the early years of Gooch’s captaincy. Atherton later wrote that while the style and positive qualities of many contemporary batters reflected their personalities, the exact opposite was true of Smith, a seemingly battle-hardened warrior (1) on the pitch, but a sensitive man in need of reassurance off it.

After struggling against the spin of India and then Shane Warne and Tim May in 1993, expectations were high that Smith would be able to recapture his best form in the West Indies in 1994. But, apart from a big hundred in the final Test in Antigua (Lara’s 375* match), he continued to find runs difficult to come by and was dropped midway through the following summer.

Smith was criticised in the press by coach Keith Fletcher for being distracted by off-field issues – assumed to be his business interests – on that tour. Although he rightly feels aggrieved at being singled out in public, Smith also admits here that he was being blackmailed by his then-mistress, who flew out to join him in Jamaica. Such was his concern to avoid upsetting her that he spent some considerable time, aided by middle-order team-mate Graeme Hick, attempting to retrieve a piece of her jewellery that had been lost in the hotel pool.

By choosing to tell the unvarnished truth about touring life in the 1990s – as well as about its subject’s subsequent off-field struggles – in a book published in 2019, The Judge faces a tricky task tonally, detailing multiple tales of infidelity while trying not to appear either too breezy or self-pitying. It’s no surprise when Smith reveals his fondest memories of his time as an England player involve the company of 80s legends and bon vivants like David Gower, Ian Botham and – especially – Allan Lamb.

It might explain why Smith later seemed like a man slightly out of his time amongst Atherton’s young thrusters, and some pundits felt that he suffered for not being able to evolve his game from its early-90s peak. A weakness against spin was repeatedly cited, and contrary to the autobiographical tradition of pushing back against unfair criticism, Smith makes several jovial references to this here – evidence, perhaps, of his tendency to put himself down.

Whether Smith was any worse than his contemporaries when it came to playing the turning ball is perhaps a fair question: despite not visiting the sub-continent for a Test series between the Indian and Sri Lankan tours of 1993 and the trip to Pakistan in the winter of 2000, and often nullifying early-season summer visitors via cold and unhelpful conditions, England still often struggled whenever they faced a spinner of any note.

Smith scored Test runs against Mushtaq Ahmed in 1992, and despite some difficulties in India the following winter, managed a hundred opening the batting in the one-off Test against Sri Lanka. When approaching the matter more seriously in The Judge, the man himself contends that it was more of a mental issue than a technical one, pointing out that when his head wasn’t right, he struggled against all types of bowling, but that he had allowed comments about his problems against spin to get to him, which created a cycle that was difficult to break.

The closest Atherton-era fans came to seeing Smith at his best was during the 1995 home series against the West Indies, when he contributed match-winning runs in the victory at Lord’s and made a lone stand in both innings on a brutal pitch at Edgbaston, before being hit in the face by Ian Bishop in the fourth Test at Old Trafford.

Smith admits here to having his confidence against fast bowling shattered, along with his jaw, leading to him wearing a helmet grille for the first time and seeking treatment from hypnotist Paul McKenna. In his absence, a thrilling series ground to a halt with two drawn matches on flat pitches that allowed batsmen on both sides to fill their boots.

Smith’s bad luck continued when he was jettisoned, for good, after the winter tour to South Africa and one-day World Cup in 1995/6, during which his contributions were useful rather than stellar.

In his final Test, the infamous Illingworth/Malcolm ‘You lost us the f***ing Test match!’ game at Cape Town, the team management were sufficiently confident in Smith’s abilities to move him up to number three in order to pursue an otherwise misguided and unbalanced selection. Despite top scoring in the first innings, and receiving a dubious decision in the second, that was his lot.

To that extent, Smith was unlucky, although his record over an extended period in the mid-90s reflected consistent underperformance, particularly when compared with the heights of the Gooch era. Those early highs meant that he was never considered a great unfulfilled talent in the same way as the likes of Graeme Hick and Mark Ramprakash, although like them he perhaps would have benefited from more sensitive management in the latter part of his Test career.

He returned to the county grind, missing the big stage but never quite making a case for a recall. Smith struggled on with domestic cricket until the age of 40, playing for Hampshire because it was the only thing he knew, even long after the possibility of returning to Test cricket had diminished.

His post-playing struggles, though not untypical, see him plummet to the very lowest depths, and these passages make for some difficult reading. The book, at least, has an optimistic ending, even if its author sadly passed away after a period of ill health in late 2025.

Smith writes here, accepting that he was not an ‘all-time great’, that he would happily be remembered as a good player of fast bowling, because it was something he worked hard on. What is also evident, from the cover testimonials from players past and present, to forewords from fellow Hampshire greats Shane Warne and Mark Nicholas, is the depth and breadth of affection that former colleagues had for him.

Nicholas, who repeats here his previously expressed view that Smith was Hampshire’s greatest ever player, ends his tribute thus: ‘I am not embarrassed to say I love this man… Fun, funny and formidable, Robin was both colleague and compadre, and is now simply the dearest of friends. I once read that he was ‘too nice’ to have had the international career he might have done. Nonsense, he’s a great bloke, and there is no shame or sense of regret in that.’

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Notes:

(1) It may seem slightly perverse not to call this piece ‘The Judge’, but I decided to avoid repeating the title of the book. ‘The Warrior’ is the phrase that comes to mind when I think of Smith, as acknowledged in the covering blurb: ‘Was he the Judge, the fearless warrior, or Robin Smith, the frantic worrier?’

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