Few English cricketers of recent vintage inspire misty-eyed reverence quite like Robin Smith.

Around the turn of the 1990s Smith was a stand-and-deliver counter-puncher in a golden age of fast bowling. With his rakish mo and lumberjack forearms Smith would powerfully cut and pull quicks of the calibre of Malcolm Marshall, Waqar Younis and Allan Donald. As West Indian domination bled into Australian domination, the swashbuckling Smith reminded England's followers that batting was about scoring runs, not simply surviving.

Perhaps The Judge is remembered so fondly because he did not suffer the inexorable decline that clouds memories of most batsmen. Instead, the notoriously capricious English selection committee sidelined Smith well before time. He played his last Test match in 1996 aged just 32 - dropped after scoring 66 of England's first-innings total of 153 in the final Test of their South African tour. At that time, Smith had the highest career batting average in the side (43.7) but was still replaced the following summer by John Crawley.

Smith now lives in Perth, where he runs a successful sports clothing and equipment business.

BackPageLead caught up with the England legend this week to talk Ashes, sledging Merv Hughes and hitting Paul Reiffel for six.

I began by asking Robin who he thought would win this summer's crucial Ashes. "My heart would still go with England," he said. "Having played for England for some time and giving my all I can't be that transparent as to start supporting the Aussies! But if I was a betting man I would have to put my money on Australia."

But what about Australia's recent poor run? Nothing to be too concerned about according to Smith. "I don't think we should take into consideration the recent series against India," he said. "Even the great Shane Warne didn't take wickets in India and India are an unbelievably strong batting side and are pretty much unbeatable at home unless you've got someone like Muralitharan who can open the bowling and run all the way through."

Smith expects the Ashes will be decided by whichever side is best able to take the required twenty wickets - something he believes Australia is best placed to achieve.

"Even though England has brought a battery of very tall fast bowlers for what they are presuming will be quicker wickets than they're used to I still think there's a lot of inexperience in there. Australia has got batting all the way down and I believe England's inexperienced bowling attack will struggle to bowl Australia out twice."

The England side touring Australia will have a strong African influence in the dressing room, something the Natal-born Smith thinks could be of benefit in Australian conditions. "If they've learnt and played a lot of their cricket in South Africa then it would be a slight advantage because being brought up on those wickets you are exposed to short-pitched and aggressive bowling earlier on than you might have been in England," Smith explained.

Smith's own cricketing development was accelerated by his father building a practice wicket next-door to the family home. A facility used by South African legends Barry Richards and Mike Procter.

As Smith told Cricinfo's Richard Edwards recently, "Dad was a bit of an eccentric and when there was a house for sale next to ours, he bought it, knocked it down and built a cricket pitch. Barry and Mike - who lived only about a mile away - would come over and bat and practise in our back garden. We also had a bowling machine and the pitch we played on was concrete with an Astroturf overlay, so when it was cranked up to 80 or 85mph, it meant I was exposed to pace very early in my life."

Smith also believes the steel the South African-born players bring to the England side will also help them through a challenging tour. He told me, "I'm not saying that England aren't tough but there's always been an element of real ruthlessness and toughness about South Africans which I think will hold them in good stead for the Ashes series that's coming up."

As a player, Smith toured Australia once, losing 3-0 in the 1990/91 Ashes. "It was a disappointing tour," he remembered. "We had the players to do well but they had Terry Alderman, Merv Hughes, Craig McDermott and Bruce Reid and they bowled collectively very well and we underperformed."

Smith suggested that it wasn't just on the pitch that England struggled. "The camaraderie or the morale within the camp wasn't as good as it possibly should have been," he lamented. "Graham Gooch was one of my heroes and a very very good captain, particularly for the younger guys. But looking back I think his management of the senior players might not have been as good as it could have been and there was a little bit of an atmosphere between him and David Gower which I think rubbed off on the rest of the players."

An atmosphere that was unlikely to have benefitted from that tour's most (in)famous incident when Gower took a Tiger Moth light aircraft for a joy-flight across Carrara Park while England was still batting in a tour match against Queensland. An incident that remains Smith's most vivid memory of that tour.

Drawing on such chastening experience, Smith's advice to the current crop of England internationals is simple; don't be intimidated. "I would just say go out, enjoy all the challenges, respect the series but go out, have fun and enjoy the game.

"There are a lot of things in life worse than playing in an Ashes series. Everyone's going to be a little apprehensive but it's an adrenaline and nervousness to enjoy - it's not as if you're on a cliff-side in Afghanistan!"

Advice Smith is all too aware he could have done with during his own career. "If I had my time over again I'd probably enjoy the cricket more than I did. To play cricket professionally, to tour Australia, to play in an Ashes series, is just the most unbelievable experience and one to be savoured," he admitted.

It must be easier said than done however, especially for a man who holds an unenviable Ashes record. Smith played a remarkable 15 Ashes tests without tasting victory. "I think I was quite unlucky in that I started at a time when Shane Warne was starting as well and Allan Border had decided to be Mr Grumpy and really fire his troops up - particularly on their 1989 tour."

Smith's difficulties against Australian spin, particular in the 1993 Ashes mauling, never quite left the minds of the selectors who left him out of the final test of that series, a disappointment that still grates. "The weak excuse that was given to me at the time was that I couldn't face Shane Warne," he said. "If only they knew then that a host of other people couldn't face Shane Warne! So it was a bit of a limp excuse." For the record, Smith was dismissed four times in five tests that series by Warne but also three times by off-spinner Tim May.

You'd expect that after having his international career jeopardised by the great Victorian, Smith would want nothing more to do with him but it's testament to his lifelong ability to prosper in adversity that Smith now regards Warne as a close friend.

"Words can't speak highly enough of Shane...When it comes down to the real Shane Warne, behind closed doors, you wouldn't find a guy who was more thoughtful and more genuine," he said. "There's no-one in my opinion that speaks more sense about the game of cricket or who has more knowledge on the game other than the likes of the Chappell's and the Greig's who have been around for many years but for somebody of Shane's era to have the vast knowledge that he's got is fantastic."

Not that Smith's relationship with all Australians has been as fulfilling. Back in 1989 Smith was involved in one of the all-time great sledges with one of the masters of mental disintegration, Merv Hughes. During the 1989 Lord's Test, Smith played and missed at a Hughes delivery which prompted the comment, "Robin, you can't f***ing bat". Smith flayed Hughes's next ball for four before following it up with, "Hey Merv, we make a fine pair. I can't f***ing bat and you can't f***ing bowl!"

A contretemps Smith assured me was very much out of character. "I've never really been a big sledger," he explained. "I think as a batsman you're asking for trouble...but with Merv, he did get under my skin and he was just relentless at sledging and swearing and abusing me and I just had enough of it on that day at Lords and I decided to retaliate."

Smith's experience against Australia might sound like a nightmare but it had its good points. Like in 1993 when he hit an unbeaten 167 in a One Day International, a score that remains England's highest in limited-overs cricket. Smith's highlight that day was, in his own words, "this one shot against Paul Reiffel. I was on the back foot and he bowled one just short and I hit it back over his head and into the commentary position. That for me was probably as good a shot as I've ever played." Typically, despite Smith's record-breaking innings, Australia won that game at a canter.

One of the defining moments in Smith's career came in 1990 when facing a hostile West Indian attack in the Caribbean. Smith was subjected to a barrage of short-pitched deliveries from Curtly Ambrose, Ian Bishop and in particular Courtney Walsh. One of these Walsh lifters swung after it pitched and flew like a heat-seeking missile into Smith's jaw. At the time Smith was batting in a grill-less helmet. Fortunately Smith was able to continue and later that year he formed a company to specialise in the design and manufacture of helmets with grills. That brand, Masuri, is now used by 60 per cent of professional cricketers and has revolutionised modern batting techniques against the short-ball.

Robin Smith's long and winding journey has taken him from South Africa to Australia via England. He has gone from destroying bowling attacks to pioneering safety equipment. His Ashes record of 15 defeats may never be broken, while nobody has got close to his unbeaten ODI record of 167 in almost 20 years. His was a glorious career of contradictions and idiosyncrasies.

Smith speaks phlegmatically of his own career, preferring to focus on what he achieved, not what he might have missed out on.

"When I first arrived as a young naïve 17 year old at Hampshire from South Africa, my ambition really was just to play cricket. To then go on and play Test cricket was just absolutely sensational. I think I would have taken the career that I had - 62 Test matches and 71 One Day Internationals - I would have embraced and taken with open arms that career had someone said I would play that much international cricket."

The egregious selectors, so pilloried for curtailing Smith in his prime should now be thanked for preserving the good times in aspic. The memory of Smith is not sullied by a loss of foot-movement. The sledgehammer cut never dwindled into a dab to third-man and the wavy mullet (which earned him the nickname of The Judge) was never allowed to recede into a short back and sides. Robin Smith will forever remain a young dasher and the memories of English cricket fans are the better for it.