Fred Trueman thought "there is probably nobody in the world who plays the off-spinner better",[6] 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.
[citation needed] Mike Smith was called up as a makeshift opener against New Zealand in 1958, making 0 and 7 on debut on his home ground at Edgbaston in the First Test.
[8] Smith was one of many signatories in a letter to The Times on 17 July 1958 opposing 'the policy of apartheid' in international sport and defending 'the principle of racial equality which is embodied in the Declaration of the Olympic Games'.
This was followed by 0, 0 and 11 and the next year against Australia he was out for a duck in the First Test at Edgbaston when the part-time bowler Ken Mackay took 3 wickets in four balls and he was dropped for the rest of the summer.
[citation needed] Smith captained England in 25 of his 50 Test match appearances, but in a period rich in batting talent he was rarely guaranteed a place.
His uncertainty against fast bowling was exposed by a series of low scores in the mid-1960s, and Smith faced considerable press criticism, unusual for the time.
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.
[15] ...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.
[16] Unlike his predecessors Len Hutton, Peter May and Ted Dexter Smith 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..."[17] and recalled "...Mike Smith adding a few words of congratulations in his thoroughly open, absent-minded-professor sort of way".
He is thoughtful for his players, unselfish, does not 'fuss' them or panic, shows a grasp of the situation which they deem generally sensible, and not least gives an inspiring personal lead in the field".