Daraine Luton, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

Smith

CRICKET WORLD CUP is almost here and cricket fans from home and abroad are being treated to pieces of West Indies cricketing history.

A place worth five minutes of your time is Collie Smith's grave at the May Pen Cemetery in west Kingston. His well-kept grave lies in the shade of a big guango tree inside May Pen Cemetery.

If you want to get to it, enter May Pen Cemetery from Spanish Town Road, take the second passage way and walk east towards the biggest guango tree. His marbled, grilled shining tomb is on the right. You can't miss it.

Despite the cemetery being overrun with vegetation, the spot where Collie Smith rests is clean, well kept and easy to locate. One man who takes credit for keeping the former West Indies cricketer in the open tells The Sunday Gleaner that five family members, including Smith's mother, are in the guango tree plot and he is paid to keep it clean, a job he seems to be doing well.

Smith perished after being injured in a motor vehicle accident 48 years ago in England. A hard- hitting batsman and off-spin bowler, Smith was rated highly in the West Indies and when he passed away at age 26, one of the largest crowds to have attended a funeral at May Pen, an estimated 60,000, turned out to say farewell.

The accident happened while he was travelling with his West Indian teammates Gary Sobers and Tom Dewdney. The trio was on their way to London to attend a charity match the next day.

However, when the car which Sobers was driving rammed into a 10-ton cattle truck, the 'Mighty Mouse', as Smith was nicknamed, and his teammates sustained injuries and had to be hospitalised.

The injuries seemed minor, with initial reports suggesting that Smith told Sobers, in reference to Dewdney: "Don't worry about me. Look after the big fellow." But the talented batsman, who had been sleeping in the back seat was far from OK. He had been thrown forward and had injured his spine badly and he soon went into a coma. Smith died without regaining consciousness three days later.