Daily Mail, Saturday, August 17, 2019
125
THE ASHES
LAWRENCE
BOOTH
Wisden Editor at Lord’s@the_topspinBACK WOE COULD FORCE MORGAN TO STEP DOWN
A
s if conscious
that rain would
prevent any
play after lunch
on the third day
of this second Test,
steve smith seemed
determined to cram as
much entertainment into
the morning as possible.
It wasn’t a question of the balls
he scored off: he was unbeaten on
13 off 40 when the
umpires called a
halt shortly before
the scheduled inter-
val at 1pm.
No, it was about the
balls he left alone,
mainly with the kind of
flourish last seen in a
Test match when West
Indies’ arch-rabbit Court-
ney Walsh would shoulder
arms, do the hokey-cokey,
then fix the bowler with a
deranged stare.
Walsh, though, compiler of a
Test record 43 ducks, had to
squeeze in his fun while it lasted.
smith, by contrast, is shaping up
as the greatest thing since Don
Bradman. If there is a sense of
impending doom, it usually
belongs to the bowler.
But even while he was scoring
144 and 142 to bend the first
Test at Edgbaston to his quirky
will, there were critics — mainly
English, it must be said — who
complained he was far easier to
admire than to watch.
The fidgets and the fiddles, the
tug of a loose-fitting part of his
kit, the impatient gestures after a
rare instance of picking out a
fielder — it all added up, said
his detractors, to a deeply
uncomfortable experience, like
observing the inner workings of
an overactive mind.
At Lord’s on the third morning,
smith took the idiosyncrasies to
a new level as England tried to
bore him out with an exaggerated
fifth-stump line. He flipped his
bat upside down with a staccato
sleight of hand, or kicked up hisback foot like a 1920s flapper
girl. At one point he almost
pirouetted a full circle.
Who knew that a game of
cat and mouse on or around
off stump could so easily become
an episode of Strictly Come
Dancing?
What, exactly, was smithplaying at? One theory surmised
he was trying to get under the
bowlers’ skins, just as England
wicketkeeper Jack Russell used
to when he performed comedy
leave-alones while wearing a pair
of shades so his opponents
couldn’t see into his soul.
But that didn’t really stack up.smith has scored plenty of runs
against England in recent years
without behaving like a hyperac-
tive mime artist. And the only
time the fielders even hinted at
irritation was when stuart Broad
at mid-off hurled the ball back
to Jonny Bairstow in smith’s
general vicinity. More convincingwas the suggestion that he was
seeking an outlet for nervous
energy, not least because he’s
playing only his second Test in
nearly a year and a half since the
sandpaper fiasco in Cape Town.
That’s a lot of pent-up activity
to release, a lot of strokes gone
unplayed, runs gone begging.
If the world’s best batsman
wants to perform the do-si-do
after passing up the opportunity
to cut a wide one past gully, who
are we to say otherwise?
One or two muttered darkly
about obsession and compulsion,
as if smith were enacting the
post-delivery equivalent of mak-
ing sure, as he does, that he can’t
see his shoelaces while he’s at the
crease. After all, he did himself
once admit: ‘I’m a bit of a head-
case when it comes to everything
with my batting.’
Displayed by anyone else, the
extravagances would have felt
affected. somehow, smith
incorporates them as if they are a
natural part of his batting
persona.
‘He is quite fidgety,’ said stuart
Broad, opting for understate-
ment before even attributing one
of the umpiring decisions —
his own rejected leg-before
shout against Travis Head,
overturned on review — to
smith’s twitchiness.
‘I think he might have done
Aleem Dar on Head’s lbw, because
he threw his arm out as if to say
that was going to go down the leg
side,’ added Broad. ‘I think Aleem
was going to give it, and then saw
smith’s arm go.
‘He explains every bit of cricket
on the field with his movements
after it’s happened. It’s the way
he stays in his bubble and he does
it very well.’
From steve Waugh, Australia’s
mentor and a former tormentor
of English bowling in his
heyday, there was a wry smile as
he assessed smith’s unique
qualities.
‘He prepares for everything,’
said Waugh. ‘He would have
thought of every scenario. That’s
just the way he is. I’ve never
played with or seen anyone quite
like him.’
That was certainly one way of
putting it. Both sides, though,
could agree on one thing: today,
and no doubt for the rest of the
series, the wicket of smith will
hold the key, and it won’t matter
a damn what he looks like.His fiddles
and fidgets
are getting
worse. So...
Twist and shout: Smith’s bizarre routines BPI/REXIs Smith
trying
to wind
us up?
EOIN MORGAN left open the
possibility he will retire from
international cricket on the
high of winning the World Cup
when he said yesterday he
needed more time to consider
his future.
England’s World Cup-winning
captain was back at Lord’s to
receive a silver cap from ECB
chairman Colin Graves and
cited a back injury as the
reason he has not confirmed if
he will play on towards next
year’s Twenty20 World Cup.
‘I need more time to think,
that’s the honest answer,’ saidMorgan, 32. ‘It’s a big decision,
a big commitment. Given the
injury I went through in the
World Cup I need time to get
fully fit.’
Morgan suffered a back spasm
in England’s World Cup win
over West Indies and even
though he played throughout
the tournament and has made
four Twenty20 appearances
for Middlesex since then, he
pulled out of their game
against Sussex last week.‘It’s my back,’ Morgan told the
BBC. ‘I actually need the season
to end pretty soon so I can
have that time to physically get
fit and guarantee I’m not an
injury risk between this year
and next. Then I’ll be able to
make a call on it.’
England want Morgan to
continue and are confident he
will once he has rested that
troublesome back.
The team’s next limited-overs
cricket starts on November 1
with a five-match T20 series in
New Zealand, while they will
not play any 50-over gamesuntil February on tour in
South Africa.
‘Absolutely, who wouldn’t?’
said Morgan when asked if he
wanted to lead England at the
T20 World Cup in Australia.
‘But I don’t want to let anyone
down. When you lead you
have to do it from the front.
You have to be physically fit
and finding form is another
thing.’
Meanwhile, England paceman
Olly Stone has been ruled out
for the rest of the season with
the back injury that kept him
out of the first two Ashes Tests.By PAUL NEWMAN
Silver service: Graves hands
Morgan his cap GETTY IMAGES