It’s hard to overstate the fear that gripped England’s batters in the late 1980s. It wasn’t so much the thought of having your head knocked off by the battery of West Indies pace aces, as the prospect of being picked for your country, playing one or two Tests, and then disappearing into the abyss.

Zak Crawley wouldn’t have lasted two minutes.

Then Robin Smith came along.

Eyes popping, arms swinging, biceps bulging: here was a boy’s-own hero, born in Durban but forged at Hampshire’s Northlands Road, a short walk away from a pub called the Cowherds. Smith looked as though he could have eaten the lot of them. In one sitting.

Then on Monday, we were hit by the devastating news that he had died suddenly at home in Perth at the age of just 62.

As an awestruck, cricket-loving youngster, I sa

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