Horace Smith

SMITH, HORACE DENNIS, who died in Christchurch, New Zealand, on January 25, 1986, and 73, was one of the ten bowlers who have taken a wicket with their first ball in Test cricket. Moreover it was his only wicket in his only Test match.

A right-arm medium-fast bowler, in the first Test at Christchurch against Jardine's side in March 1933 the twenty-year-old Smith bowled Paynter with the first ball of the second over, the ball swinging late between bat and pad to hit the left-handers middle and leg stumps. With Sutcliffe having been caught behind off the first ball of the match, from Badcock, England were 4 for two. Had Hammond been caught at slip in the first over, England might have been three wickets down: instead Hammond went on to 227 and England scored 560 for eight. In his twenty overs, Smith conceded 113 runs, and for the second Test he was named twelfth man. He played six times for Otago and four for Canterbury, and in his eleven matches took seventeen wickets at 33.52 and scored 404 runs with an average of 22.44.