Daily Mail, Thursday, August 29, 2019
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‘The win showed
our fight. No one
rolled over and
played dead, so we
can use that’
I thought
of Hughes
as I was hit
England quick. ‘I did want to bowl
at him when he came back out at
Lord’s but he was out before I
even got to come back on. But
there’ll be more than ample time
to get him out.’
Smith insists that thought does
not faze him. Nor is he worried by
the prospect of Archer and the
rest of the England attack targeting
him with the short ball on what is
expected to be the quickest pitch of
the series at Old Trafford.
‘If they’re bowling up there it
means they can’t nick me off, or hit
me on the pad or hit my stumps,’
said the man returning this summer
after the Sandpapergate scandal.
‘With the Dukes ball, I don’t know.
That would be an interesting ploy.
I’m not really going to change
anything.’
Archer added: ‘At the end of the
day I’m not saying I won’t get him
out but if we don’t get him out
there’s 10 other people we can get
out and if he’s stranded on 40 that’s
not helping his team too much
to be honest. We all know he’s a
world-class batter and has the right
temperament for Test cricket but
he can’t do it all himself.
‘Even if we don’t get him, fair play
to him but we want to win the game.
I’m not here to get caught up in a
contest with one man. I want to win
the Ashes.’
For all Smith’s confidence yester-
day he admitted his mind went back
at Lord’s to the tragic day in 2014
when Australia batsman Phillip
Hughes died after being struck
in the same area at the back of
his neck.
‘I had a few things running through
my head when I was hit,’ said Smith.
‘That was probably the first thing I
thought about. Then I was like, “I’m
Ok here”. I was a bit sad but I was
all right mentally for the rest of the
afternoon.’
Smith will now consider whether to
wear the stem-guard protection on
the back of his neck that is now com-
mon at the highest level after the
death of Hughes but admits he finds
the protective equipment uncom-
fortable. He was trying it out in the
Derbyshire nets yesterday ahead of
today’s match. ‘I’ve tried thembefore and I tried them the other
day when I was batting and I reckon
my heart rate went up by 30 or 40
straight away,’ said Smith. ‘I just felt
claustrophobic. I compare it to being
stuck in an MRI scan machine.
‘It was different but I think at
some point they will become
compulsory so I will have to get
used to them. And I’m sure the
more I wear them, the more I prac-
tise in them, my heart rate will come
down and everything will be Ok.’
Australia sprang a surprise when
they named their side to face
Derbyshire in today’s tour match
when they brought World Cup
wicketkeeper Alex Carey into the
squad from his spell with Sussex.
The tourists said it was to give
captain Tim Paine a rest but Aus-
tralia already had another experi-
enced keeper, Matthew Wade, in
their squad and this move can only
increase the pressure on a leader
who is struggling to justify his place
in the side.
Nathan Lyon, who fumbled the
run out of Jack Leach in the third
Test that would have won Australia
the Ashes, misses out today after
twisting his ankle in practice.Oval stoked by ticket sales
From Back PageTHE OVAL has sold around 7,000
tickets for the fifth day of the final
Ashes Test since Ben Stokes’s
dramatic innings at Headingley
on Sunday.
The tickets have been snapped up
for the last day of the series after
the England all-rounder’s heroics,
with nearly two-thirds bought by
first-time visitors.
It has prompted Surrey’s chief
executive Richard Gould to talk of
‘the Ben Stokes effect’.
‘Cricket is booming,’ Gould said
after the rush of ticket sales has
seen the fifth Test sold out and
sell-out crowds for both T20
matches at the ground this week.
‘The Kia Oval sold 4,000 ticketsyesterday for day five of the final
Ashes Test,’ said Gould of the
latest Stokes-inspired rush.
‘Fifty-nine per cent of purchasers
were new to international
cricket. The Ben Stokes effect?
‘We enjoyed a capacity crowd for
Surrey v Somerset T20 last night,
and another full house
tomorrow.’
The Oval Test starts on Thursday
September 12. Adult tickets for
day five cost £25, with under-16
tickets priced at just £1.
The Oval has already sold a record
107,000 tickets for seven home
matches this season.LAURA LAMBERTExtra cover: Smith wears stem
guards in the nets yesterday