In the nets before play at the Adelaide
Oval, Steve Smith was, inevitably, a
conspicuous presence. A crowd
gathered to watch him pounding away
at his block, punching throw downs
into the side netting, drilling his strokes,
massaging his quirks.
Smith at practice is much like Smith
at the crease. All the mannerisms are
present, maybe slightly dialled down
for his not being in competition, but
unmistakeable.
If he miscues slightly, he throws his
head back in annoyance. If the ball does
not come on, he gives a warning gesture
to an invisible partner. He paid the
thrower, Michael Di Venuto, no heed;
Australia’s assistant coach might as well
have been a machine, feeding his
voracious appetite for practice volume.
It was not long before the same com-
pulsive rituals were to be seen in the
middle, with a few familiar additions,
such as the steps down the pitch prepar-
atory to extending a warning arm and
Leadership lifts screwball
Smith back to levels of old
4 1GS Saturday December 18 2021 | the times
Sport The Ashes
bat, as though he’s about to inscribe the
mark of Zorro.
In his head, perhaps, Smith is batting
all day; only the setting changes. “[Steve
Smith] doesn’t channel his batting
talent,” Greg Chappell says in his recent
book Not Out. “His batting talent
channels him.”
Before this Test, a news report had
pointed out that Smith, since the
advent of Marnus Labuschagne, had
been merely a productive Test bats-
man, rather than the run-making
perpetual-motion machine of yore.
Smith had taken this intelligence in
good part. Australia’s diminishing
dependence on him, he insisted, was a
favourable development. Where the
runs came from mattered less than that
they came.
Still, part of him must have been
piqued, ever so slightly.
Every top batter welcomes
the idea of being the guy, the
banker, the one who brings it
home, the one to whom others
turn in time of crisis.
But then, without warning,
without qualification, came
the leadership, howevertemporary. Smith averages 54 as a
player but 71 as captain. And so it
flowed, as if on schedule.
The second day’s first boundary, a
rasping cover drive off Stuart Broad,
came after five minutes. The first glove
change, the 12th man summoned like a
maître d’, followed 15 minutes later.
The first touch of class, a back cut
from Joe Root, anticipated the first
glimpse of eccentricity, a top edge over
the wicketkeeper’s head from another
Ben Stokes short ball. That brought up
Smith’s 32nd Test fifty, and his first
since January, in 136 busy, bustling balls.
Every so often England managed to
beat his outside edge, with a bit of
vestigial shape. But their best hope ap-
peared to be a claim that by wearing
Pat Cummins’s blazer on the
first day Smith had
become a close
contact, and
should therefore
be in isolation. A
pull for six off
Chris Woakes
flew deep into the
Basheer Stand,
despite Smith’s
abbreviated swing.
After England prised Labus-
chagne from the crease at thefourth attempt, Travis Head and
Cameron Green lost their stumps in a
fluctuating middle section, and Alex
Carey took the opportunity to present
his batting credentials at Test level.
Unobtrusive behind the stumps, he
catches the eye in front of them, with a
compact left-handed technique.
Carey’s partnership with Smith had
swelled to 91 from 166 deliveries when
James Anderson slipped one past the
Australia captain’s inside edge.
This had not been on the agenda:
Smith had only thrice been stopped in
the nineties on the way to his 27 Test
hundreds. He reviewed, mainly out of
incredulity; he departed, with a dis-
believing shake of the head, repeating
the shot as though he was ready for his
next set of throw downs. He had to rest
content with licensing his tailenders to
lay about them, and timing Australia’s
declaration with sadistic intent.
At about 8.30pm, with the last rays of
sun gone and the orange ball gleaming
in the darkness, Smith led the Austra-
lians into the field, arranged his forces
from second slip, and wrapped his capa-
cious hands round Rory Burns’s outside
edge to chalk up his 125th Test catch.
He’d been practising for that as well.
6 Gideon Haigh is a columnist for The
AustralianGideon
Haigh
dSmith averages 71 in Tests
as captain of AustraliaBroad bowled
26 overs as
England’s all-
seam attack
toiled again