Complex sentence: Though Cowdrey still had his supporters at Lords Smith was kept as captain for the 1965-66 Ashes series with Cowdrey as vice-captain, but they knew each other as schoolboys and Oxford undergraduates and got on well.
Split into simpler sentences: Though Cowdrey still had many supporters at Lords Smith was kept as captain for the 1965-66 Ashes series with Cowdrey as vice-captain. They had knewn each other as schoolboys and Oxford undergraduates and got on well.