Edward Thomas Smith (born 19 July 1977) is an English author and journalist, former professional

cricketer Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

, and cricket commentator. He played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

for

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

and

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, he currently works in

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

in the Sporting Intelligence department at

Derby County Derby County Football Club () is a professional association football club in Derby, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second level of the English football league system. One of the 12 founder members of the English Football ...

. Prematurely retiring from professional cricket due to injury in 2008, at the age of only 31, he became an author and journalist and in 2013 he joined the BBC's ''

Test Match Special ''Test Match Special'' (also known as ''TMS'') is a British sports radio programme, originally, as its name implies, dealing exclusively with Test cricket matches, but currently covering any professional cricket. The programme is available on BB ...

'' as a commentator for

The Ashes The Ashes is a Test cricket series played biennially between England and Australia. The term originated in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, '' The Sporting Times'', immediately after Australia's 1882 victory at The Oval, ...

series against

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. Smith was England's national selector from 2018 until 2021, when the role was abolished. Smith in 2024, was appointed in a role as part of the Sporting Intelligence department at Derby County Football Club.

Early life

Smith was born in

Pembury Pembury is a large village in Kent, in the south east of England, with a population of 6,128 at the 2011 census. It lies just to the north-east of Royal Tunbridge Wells. The village centre, including the village green and High Street area is a ...

, Kent. He attended Yardley Court and

Tonbridge School Tonbridge School is a public school (English fee-charging boarding and day school for boys aged 13–18) in Tonbridge, Kent, England, founded in 1553 by Sir Andrew Judde (sometimes spelt Judd). It is a member of the Eton Group and has clo ...

where he was in the dayboy house Welldon House and his father, novelist Jonathan Smith, taught English for most of his career. He went on to

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Peterhouse has around 300 undergraduate and 175 graduate stud ...

to read history and earned a full

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...

playing for the university cricket team. He scored a

century A century is a period of 100 years or 10 decades. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. ...

on his first-class debut for

Cambridge University Cricket Club Cambridge University Cricket Club, established in 1820, is the representative cricket club for students of the University of Cambridge. The club was recognised as holding first-class cricket, first-class status until 2020. The university played ...

in 1996 and graduated with a

double first The British undergraduate degree classification system is a Grading in education, grading structure used for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and Master's degree#Integrated Masters Degree, integrated master's degrees in the United Kingd ...

despite devoting much of his time to cricket.

Cricket

Smith played three home Test matches for

against

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

in 2003. He made 64 on debut, but scored only 23 runs in his next four

innings An innings is one of the divisions of a cricket match during which one team takes its turn to bat. Innings also means the period in which an individual player bats (acts as either striker or nonstriker). In cricket and rounders, "innings" is ...

, and was dropped for the subsequent tour of the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

. Smith was a tall right-handed batsman with a penchant for the drive and represented

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and

. During thirteen seasons of first-class cricket, he scored 34 centuries. He hit a peak in 2003, scoring 135, 0, 122, 149, 113, 203, 36, 108 and 32 for Kent in July of that year. He averaged 72.99 for the 2003 first-class season when he was selected for England. He left his native county following the 2004 season and joined Middlesex for 2005. He captained the county for two seasons during 2007 and 2008. After missing most of the 2008 season due to an ankle injury, Smith announced his retirement later that year. In 2012, Smith became a commentator for the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

's ''

''. He continued to play cricket as an amateur on the Authors XI team, which is composed of British authors and journalists, and contributed a chapter to the team's book ''The Authors XI: A Season of English Cricket from Hackney to Hambledon''.

Literary career

Smith's first book, ''Playing Hard Ball'', describes his interest in the game, psychology, history and mythology of American baseball and compares it to cricket. His diary of the 2003 season, ''On and Off the Field'', was named the 2005 Wisden Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the

William Hill Sports Book of the Year The William Hill Sports Book of the Year is an annual British sports writing award sponsored by bookmaker William Hill. It was first presented in 1989, and was conceived by Graham Sharpe of William Hill, and John Gaustad, founder of the Sport ...

and The Cricket Society Book of the Year Award in 2004. In ''Luck: What it Means and Why it Matters'' (2012) Smith examines the concepts of luck, fortune, destiny and fate in sport and beyond. Smith is also a regular columnist and contributed cricket book reviews for the ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "Bible of cricket" (or variations thereof) has been applied to ''Wi ...

'' and history book reviews for the ''

Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, first published on 5 February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegr ...

''. He wrote a weekly column for the ''

New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...

''. In July 2016, Smith was accused of

plagiarism Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 ''Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close ...

in an article he wrote for

ESPNcricinfo ESPNcricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a ...

. The article was subsequently removed from the website, with editor-in-chief Sambit Bal noting that the article "bore striking similarities to parts of a piece published in the ''Economist'' a few days prior".

Football

In June 2024, Smith was appointed in a role the Sporting Intelligence department at

, working alongside former England cricket head of performance Mo Bobat as Derby looked to introduce an AI programme to help with player recruitment, performance and sports science.

Bibliography

* Smith, E. T. (2003) ''Playing Hard Ball''. Abacus Books. * Smith, Ed (2005). ''On and Off the Field''.

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...

. * Smith, Ed (2009). ''What Sport Tells Us About Life''.

. * Smith, Ed (2012). ''Luck: What it Means and Why it Matters''.

Bloomsbury Publishing Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. Bloomsbury's head office is located on Bedford Square in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a US publishing office located in ...

. * Smith, Ed (2022). ''Making Decisions''. William Collins.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Ed 1977 births Living people Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge Cambridge University cricketers English male journalists England Test cricketers Kent cricketers Middlesex cricket captains People educated at Tonbridge School Cricketers from Pembury English cricket commentators British Universities cricketers Middlesex cricketers Derby County F.C. non-playing staff Cricket writers