Only One John Smith, However...

I'll get to the title of this post at the end...

A New Pair

Some cricketers' names through time recur time and time again. It's not really surprising as some ("English") surnames are somewhat common; Mike Smith springs to mind but there's been a number of David Lloyds too. It's less common is to have players of the same name playing concurrently, obviously.



Yes, we are all looking forward to the possibility when Sussex play Durham this season in Division 1 with a chance that Ollie Robinson might bowl to Ollie Robinson, but injury or England might put paid to that scenario. (Haven't they both been in the same England squad at one time?).


There's now a new pair of players on the block however, that share the same name.



Kent have signed an overseas Pakistan player, Kashif Ali who shares his name with that player at Worcestershire who'd graduated from the SACA. As Kent are now in Division Two, there's only a slim chance that they will face each other this season, alas.

So what about Notts?

Famously through the long history of Nottinghamshire cricket there have been a number of fathers and sons with the same name that have both respresented the county:

George Gunn - sr, jr

Joe Hardstaff- sr, jr

Arthur Shrewsbury- sr, jr

There has also been two Robert Gibsons in the early years of Nottinghamshire cricket. There has also been two John Oscrofts but the father of Trent Bridge, William Clarke, shares his name with two other players that have represented the club - so three William Clarkes!

So what about John Smith? Perhaps the most common of British names, well yes as the title suggests, there's only been one John Smith to represent our county at cricket since 1800, but there has in this century been two Greg Smiths however.

Ref: the Heritage Team's hard work on the Pravda website of all the old players, I'm sure I've missed some pairs.