Although they failed to reclaim the Ashes this was not unexpected as the Australian press labelled them the weakest MCC team to arrive in Australia and the bookmakers were giving odds of 7/2 on their winning the series.
These views rapidly changed as they set about winning their state matches with exciting, aggressive cricket and by the First Test the odds against them had been reduced to evens.
[2] Financially the tour's receipts were much lower than in 1962–63 due to the number of rain-affected games in a wet Australian summer and the general doldrums of the sixties.
Griffith had become Secretary in 1962 and oversaw the official merging of amateur and professional for the 1963 season, which prevented him from managing the MCC tour of Australia in 1962–63, except for one month when he flew out to relieve the Duke of Norfolk.
...he strolled in with an open-necked shirt, a white linen jacket which appeared to have been slept in for a week and a carry-cot containing a slumbering junior member of the Smith dynasty.
Despite an Oxford education his accent was utterly classless and between questions to which he appeared to be paying no attention whatever, he applied himself to solving the crossword in the latest Times to arrive from Britain.
[8][9][10] He was captain of Oxford University (1956), Warwickshire (1957–67) and England (1963–66) and unlike Len Hutton, Peter May or Ted Dexter rode '...the side with a loose rein, believing it knew where it was going and need only an occasional tug to keep it on the right course.
Even the truculent fast bowler John Snow '...thought he was very astute in his handling of players...'[12] and recalled '...Mike Smith adding a few words of congratulations in his thoroughly open, absent-minded-professor sort of way'.
Fred Trueman thought "there is probably nobody in the world who plays the off-spinner better",[15] but Smith's fragility against fast bowling meant that he could not hold down a regular place in the Test team.
His outwardly nonchalant captaincy hid a good cricketing brain and he took a rebuilt Warwickshire side to third, fourth and second place in the County Championship in 1962–64.
When Mickey Stewart was unable to play after the first day because of dysentery he seriously considered calling up the cricket journalist Henry Blofeld, but managed to survive with just 10 men.
It was his best series with 306 runs (51.00) and when Ted Dexter retired after losing 1–0 to Bobby Simpson's Australia in 1964 Smith was made captain for England's last tour of South Africa before the Basil d'Oliveira Crisis.
[17] Unlike the previous three tours England arrived in Australia with some capable opening batsmen, Bob Barber, Geoff Boycott and John Edrich.
[24] In 1965 he had been controversially dropped from the England team for taking over seven hours to make 137 against a weak New Zealand attack, but when quick runs were needed in the Fifth Test at Melbourne he surprised everyone by smashing a hundred off 122 balls and bringing up the century with a six into the stands.
Colin Cowdrey was the most experienced England batsmen – this was the fourth of his six tours in Australia – and was a classic strokemaker whose perfect timing was a great asset on hard Australian wickets.
Barry Knight was a big-hitting all rounder who enjoyed thumping county sides and weak Test attacks like India and New Zealand, but struggled against Australia.
Of MCC's cluster of fastish bowlers Brown was laid low with bursitis, or a sort of house-maid's knee of the elbow, David Larter, that tall, pleasant if somewhat remote young man who enjoys the unique distinction of having toured Australia twice with the MCC without being chosen for a Test Match, could only bowl half-pace because of a strained side, while Ken Higgs, faithful trier if ever there was one but who looked a little plain on Australian pitches, had picked up a chill...so the England fast attack consisted perforce of Jones and Knight, the latter until a few weeks previously having been vegetating quietly down in Essex.
The fast bowler John Snow would take 31 wickets (22.83) in the 1970–71 Ashes series, but he was not chosen for the tour and went to South Africa to play club cricket.
Brown was 6'4" tall and was noted for his steep bounce and was regarded as England's best new ball bowler, his 5/63 forced Australia to follow on in the Third Test at Sydney.
The Scottish seamer David Larter was even taller at 6' 7" and had a ridiculously long run, but he lacked self-confidence, and an ankle injury on the tour ended his career.
[27] Ken Higgs revived his career in 1965 as Brian Statham's new ball partner for Lancashire and took 4/47 and 4/96 against the powerful South African batting at the Oval in 1965.
David Allen and Fred Titmus returned after their successful tour in 1962–63, but were only useful on the famous spinning wicket at Sydney, taking 4/47 and 4/40 in the second innings of England's victory.
Ken Barrington had started life as a leg-spinner and was a good bowler at club level, as was Bob Barber, and commentators thought they should have been used more widely considering England's poor attack, but Smith only tried them when a draw was a foregone conclusion.