With the opening experiment officially over, Steve Smith is planning an aggressive and proactive approach to Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin this summer and has revealed the simple blueprint he hopes will allow him to produce a big score in the opening Test in Perth.
“It always makes your summer better when you start well. It gives you a lot of confidence,” Smith told this masthead before the series gets under way at Perth Stadium on Friday. “It’d be nice to be able to hit the ground running with some runs in the first game and help the team win.
“It’s about not overthinking things. It’s playing each ball as it comes and keeping it simple. When I’m playing my best, I’m not overthinking and I’m just playing what’s in front of me. It’s going to be a good battle.”
Smith’s elevation to the top of the Test batting order will go down as one of Australian cricket’s more curious chapters.
After the third day of the Sydney Test at the start of this year – David Warner’s last match – Smith announced in a radio interview with ABC Grandstand that he was willing to open the batting.
Some 283 days later, chief selector George Bailey confirmed Smith’s time as a Test opener – which yielded 171 runs in four Tests at an average 28.5 – was over.
Steve Smith in action for Australia. Credit: Getty
Smith will be back at No.4 – his preferred position, where he has made 61.6 per cent of his Test runs at 61.5 – against India this summer.
For both Smith and Australia, his position in the batting order is less important than the percentage of runs he can contribute to help win back the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in 10 years.
Australia have never lost a Test on home soil when Smith has made a hundred.
His contribution to a winning cause is immense. When Australia win, Smith averages 65.4. When they lose, that number drops to 33.63.
The only member of Australia’s top six who comes close to that disparity is Travis Head (50.11 batting average in wins, 25.25 in losses).
When Smith gets going, few batsmen in world cricket are harder to get out, and he relishes getting on top of the opposition’s most dangerous players. This summer, that is the 38-year-old Ashwin.
The leading wicket-taker in India’s side with 536 Test scalps, Ashwin raised eyebrows in the build-up to this series when he declared he’d worked Smith out after some earlier struggles.
“Several times much later, when I think I’ve kind of figured out what he does or how he bats, I’ve had an edge over him. I’ve had the wood over him,” Ashwin said in a recent interview with Channel Seven.
Ravi Ashwin gets the prized wicket of Steve Smith in Delhi in February.Credit: Getty Images
Smith averages 54.2 against Ashwin across his career but made just 22 runs and was dismissed twice in the 2023 series in India. In Australia, Smith is even more dangerous against Ashwin, averaging a healthy 80.3 despite being removed by him three times in the 2020-21 series for 64 runs.
“Ashwin nicked me off in the first innings in Adelaide and then got me at leg slip at the MCG on a tacky wicket,” Smith said. “I don’t like getting out to off-spin in Australia. I feel as though it should be, particularly for a right-handed batter, relatively easy to face. But he’s also a very good bowler and he came in with some decent plans.
“There were a couple of occasions where he got on top of me, then I got on top of him at the SCG when I was a bit more proactive [Smith made 131 and 81]. So that’s key for me. Just be proactive against him and not let him settle and bowl the way he wants to.”
Smith feels that if he can land a few early blows on Ashwin, the spinner might unravel, given his mediocre Test bowling average of 42.15 in Australia.
“When you have five matches, if someone gets on top of another player, they could have 10 innings against them,” Smith said. “So you’re facing those mental challenges each game, and if it goes one way early, they will feel under pressure against that player. There’s nowhere to hide in five games like there are in a two-game series.
“Ashwin and I have had some good battles over the years.”
History shows that Smith tends to get better as series go on. In the opening Test of a series, across all countries, Smith averages 50.68, compared with 59.86 in the second match, 58.44 in the third, 53.52 in the fourth and 68.33 in a fifth Test if there is one.
For Australia to beat India, Smith will need to make big contributions and spend ample time at the crease. He believes, in Australia, that is harder to do nowadays than, for example, during his purple patch in 2014-15 when he plundered a hundred in each match of that series against India.
“There’s no doubt it’s more challenging for batters now, but it is more rewarding if you get a big score,” Smith said. “Back in the day, you had to score big hundreds to put your team in good positions. If you’re getting 80 to 100 now, a lot of the time you’re putting your team in a good spot in Australia.
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