Tom Smith

Full Name	Tom Smith
Nickname	Smudger
DoB	26th December 1985
Height	6' 3"
Bats/Bowls	Left Hand/Right arm fast medium
Shirt Number	24
Lancashire	Lancs Academy 2003-4, Scholarship 2005. Debut 2005, Cap 2010. Other club: Leics (loan) 2008
Tests	0
ODI	0

Profile

When Tom Smith went on loan to Leicestershire in the summer of 2008, Mike Watkinson was at pains to stress that the now 23-year-old seamer remained very much a part of Lancashire's future plans.

By the end of that September Watkinson’s words looked prescient indeed. By then, Smith had bowled magnificently to take three for 28 in the vital victory over Kent at Aigburth, and had finished the 2008 campaign as a key member of the Old Trafford attack. He also had a new contract in his pocket.

Not everyone had been convinced about the wisdom of the temporary move to Grace Road.

One talentless hack in the press-box offered the view that there were so many South Africans at the midlands county that the pride of Chorley might need to change his name to Smit if he wanted to fit in.

But, while he didn't return from Leicestershire humming the tune to Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika, Smith certainly came back home with the match fitness and bowling-miles in his legs that only first-class cricket can provide. When a place in the senior side became available, he was ready to take it.

Smith's experiences in 2008 were only one of a number stages in a career which has already had its fair share of elation and disappointment.

In between taking up a place in the ECB's National Academy in successive winters, the wholehearted Chorley-raised Liverpudlian claimed 35 wickets in his 2006 breakthrough season, only to struggle to secure a first-team place the following year.

Lancashire's coaches kept their faith in the player's abilities - his accuracy and movement with the ball, his abilities with the bat and his, at times, spectacular catching and fielding.

At Aigburth and Taunton in September, 2008, Smith repaid their confidence with interest.

"Tom's back to where he was the season before last," said Glen Chapple immediately after the Liverpool win in which he himself had taken six for 40. "His strengths are that he gets it in good areas, he hits the seam and he's got enough pace."

Chapple might have added that his team-mate also possesses the mental strength which any first-class cricketer needs if he is going to survive in the profession.

And that mental strength was again required at stages through the summer of 2009, which he prepared for by playing for the famous Melbourne club St Kilda.

He was arguably the biggest beneficiary of the appointment of Peter Moores as head coach early in ’09.

Having worked with Smith at the ECB National Academy, Moores knew what Smith was about.

And he decided to use Smith at the top of the batting order in both one-day and four-day cricket – a job Smith had never done professionally, but had experience of it at club level, most recently at St Kilda.

He claimed 35 wickets for Lancashire in all competitions with his fast medium pace and scored 922 runs.

He scored 235 of those runs in the Championship, adding a best of 95 against Hampshire at the Rose Bowl in early August.

He had endured a difficult start to life as a new-ball opener in four-day cricket – although he had taken to it better in one-day cricket – but just when things were starting to look up for the player, he suffered an abdominal tear and missed four matches.

He scored a century in the University friendly at the start of the season - and looked more at home against the white ball, scoring a superb unbeaten 87 in a Friends Provident Trophy match against Glamorgan at Cardiff in May.

He deservedly scooped the club’s one-day player of the year award shortly before heading off to Perth for the winter at grade side Gosnells under the captaincy of Paul Horton in preparation for 2010.

Lancashire fans will be seeing a lot more of ‘Smudger’ in the seasons to come.

Paul Edwards, Graham Hardcastle
(c) Lancashire County Cricket Club Ltd
Click here for career stats