Like Steve Smith when facing Scott Boland in the Sheffield Shield match at the MCG last month, we might all be playing the wrong line.
We’re looking at a quantum of missing Test runs. We’re looking at a vacancy at the top of the order. We’re looking at the hole left by Cameron Green’s injury.
We should be looking at Smith.
Steve Smith falls lbw to Scott Boland.Credit: cricket.com.au
He’s an all-time great, no doubt. But that was then. Smith’s last Test century was in the Lord’s Ashes Test last year. In 10 Tests since, he’s made four half-centuries and averaged 33. It’s adequate, at best. But Australia generally does not deal in mere adequacy, and Smith certainly doesn’t.
For comparison’s sake, David Warner averaged 31 in his last 10 Tests, including a century against Pakistan. When he retired, not many thought it was a moment too soon (even fewer would have him back now).
In the opposite change room this summer will be Virat Kohli, with Smith, Joe Root and Kane Williamson the premier batsmen of these times. In Kohli’s last nine Tests, he’s averaged 41 and India is puzzling over his recession. In Australia, seemingly there are no quizzical looks at Smith. But there should be.
Steve Smith looks dejected after being dismissed on day one of the Second Test against New Zealand in March this year.Credit: Getty Images
Test form can be tricky to trace because Tests mostly are played in short, hectic series, with long lulls in between. Australia hasn’t played once since March. To a degree, we’re starting again now.
But Smith hasn’t been blazing runs in other forums, either. He did not play in NSW’s first Shield match against South Australia and missed out in the second against Victoria. He might tell you he was unlucky: a leg-side flick to the keeper in the first innings, a marginal lbw decision in the second. He did tell you, in body language. He really needs to put a sock in it.
Smith in his pomp was a problem-solver. It meant that whatever question was asked of him at the crease, he would devise an answer. In 2019 in England, the home team despaired. Opponents tried bowling at his seemingly vulnerable front pad. They tried bowling wide. They tried bowling at his head. It was all to no avail.
Then New Zealand and Neil Wagner tied him down by bowling short into his body, with the field set appropriately. It changed the terms. Since, bowlers have found other ways to restrict him – and to get him out.
Smith is 35. It’s not old as such, but it is an age beyond which few cricketers improve. It’s like a light that suddenly appears on your car’s dashboard. It doesn’t mean you’re going to crash now, but it does mean that you have to do something soon. Often, that means replacing a part.
Two Australian peculiarities blur assessments of Smith now. One is the way we fix cricketers as if in formaldehyde, seeing them as they were, not as they are. Smith was a great, and is still good enough, but his output is diminishing. He’s fallible in ways he has not been for 10 years. That is only to be expected, but it should not be ignored.
The other is the clubbiness of the Test team. Half a century ago, it was said that it was harder to get out of the Test team than to get into it. It’s still true. The conversation proceeds as if the standing Test XI is a given. It should not. No position should be a sinecure. Every selection should be a review.
That’s not to say that we need a spill of all positions immediately. It’s not to say that Smith should be dropped henceforth. A cricket team can bear only so much change at once.
But it is to say that for the first time, Smith is on his last chance.
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