By Paul Grunill

It is perhaps surprising that for such a common name only 14 Smiths have played Test cricket for England.

Age: 25 Career first class record: 6,949 runs at 40.16 Championship record in 2003: 1,088 runs at 57.26

By next Thursday, barring injury to Kent's latest batting find, that list will be augmented to 15.

The first Smith for England, C Aubrey Smith, played against South Africa at Port Elizabeth in 1888 but later became an actor and founded the Hollywood Cricket Club.

Kent batsman Ed Smith also likes the USA, and his interest extended to writing a book about baseball - 'Playing Hard Ball' - in 2001.

Thankfully, cricket remains his main sporting concern, however.

His career-best innings of 203 against Lancashire at Blackpool earlier this summer made him the first batsman this summer to reach 1,000 first-class runs.

It also continued a remarkable sequence which saw him make 135 against Surrey, 122 in a one-day game against Glamorgan, and 149 and 133 against Nottinghamshire.

After that came a remarkable 108 off 118 deliveries in a total of just 189 against Essex.

In the Blackpool innings, Smith struck a six and 35 fours - and all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, a former England under-19 team-mate, admitted he had never seen him play better.

Smith is fascinated by US sport Ed pitches baseball idea

It was a flat track offering nothing to the home seamers, who toiled away grimly under a baking sun.

But the drives which were the hallmark of Smith's innings, stroked with perfect timing either side of the stumps at the bowler's end, were those of a batsman of genuine class.

"It was a very skiddy wicket, so I felt the place to hit them was down the ground," he said.

Affable, yet highly intelligent, Smith took the academic route into the county game by playing first-class cricket for Cambridge Universiity, where he read history.

He marked his debut appearance for the Light Blues in 1996 by scoring 101 against Glamorgan and also opened for England in three under-19 Tests against New Zealand that summer.

Kent's batsmen enjoyed a highly productive summer in 2001, amassing 21 Championships centuries between them - three of them by Smith, although his efforts were overshadowed by David Fulton's nine.

Gloucestershire's Mike was the last Smith to play for England in a Test

The improvement was maintained last year with 1,239 runs, his most successful season so far but one which he is on course to eclipse by the end of the current Championship campaign.

"Form comes and form goes and you've got to cash in and get big scores when you can," said Smith.

"It's really nice to get to 1,000 runs. It's one of those milestones if you don't get, you think you haven't had a very good year - and it's nice to get it half-way through the season."

So what are his plans for the winter?

"If I'm not playing cricket, then I may have a bit of a holiday in America, but I'll probably play some cricket somewhere in the southern hemisphere," he said.

If he impresses in England colours at Trent Bridge, Headingley and The Oval, that trip could be to Bangladesh or Sri Lanka.