Even before Pat Cummins confirmed in January that Steve Smith would move up the order to open after David Warner’s retirement, numerous figures in and around the team were making eerily accurate predictions.
Smith, having got sick of waiting to go out to bat after Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne and occasionally David Warner had already made big runs, was reaching for the first opportunity to get ahead of them in the order.
Steve Smith fails again in Christchurch.Credit: Getty Images
But, the prediction continued, Smith would find that opening was a far more difficult job in a period of grassy pitches and a more lively Kookaburra ball, and by winter time would be changing his mind and asking to return to the middle order.
And that, more or less, is exactly how it played out, as selection chair George Bailey formalised Smith’s move back down into more familiar batting territory. By the end, Smith was open about the fact there was no consensus in the team that favoured him opening, in fact quite the opposite.
The saga said much about Smith. He is a batting genius but a wilful individual, who has for some time been searching for a way back to the batting automaton mode that exemplified his best years, capped by a truly remarkable 2019 Ashes.
Smith has often been frustrated since then, by what he sees as the negative tactics employed to corral him. Liberal use of the short ball and packed leg side fields have done much to slow his rate of scoring.
But it is also true that Smith has found himself more commonly dismissed by conventionally good deliveries in the channel around off stump.
Sam Konstas’ cover drives are a feature of his game.Credit: Getty Images
Few dismissals were more orthodox than how he nicked Chris Woakes on the final day of the fifth Test at the Oval. That dismissal, when well set, cost Smith and Australia the chance to win the series outright.
Just as clear-headed is the realisation that, at 35, Smith’s powers are waning in much the same way as they will for all players who have put themselves through the “grind” of more than 100 Test matches.
While it is true that Khawaja has enjoyed a regeneration in his late 30s, he also spent three years out of the Test side between 2019 and 2022, and before that had never been as consistently chosen.
For players with as many miles on the clock as Smith, the best moves have generally been down the order to five and six, rather than up.
Smith’s campaign to open, and then not to open, also demonstrated the lighter touch of decision-makers around the team in the era of Pat Cummins and Andrew McDonald. This has been construed at times as a case of the selectors making themselves redundant, as the players run the show.
But by humouring Smith, letting him have four Tests at the top, and duly finding out how challenging it can be, the selectors also sent a message down the chain into Sheffield Shield ranks. Essentially, “we want to see big runs from someone”.
They have not been wholly convinced by the likes of Cameron Bancroft, Marcus Harris and Matt Renshaw.
Instead, they are looking ardently for someone to show the hunger for consistent big scores that Smith, Khawaja, Warner and even Travis Head all demonstrated before their elevation to the Test side.
By running the clock down with Smith’s flight of fancy, Bailey, McDonald and Tony Dodemaide have allowed more time for others to emerge. Namely the rising star of 19-year-old Sam Konstas, but also the highly respected South Australian captain Nathan McSweeney.
Thirty-one years ago, the panel then led by Laurie Sawle did something similar following the decision to drop Allan Border’s deputy and opener Geoff Marsh. Over a period of 15 months, they tried Wayne Phillips, Tom Moody and Justin Langer as temporary openers, while also promoting David Boon from number three. None looked like long-term plays.
In that time, a young NSW opener called Michael Slater hammered a 1000-run summer in his second season, and jumped the queue to become Mark Taylor’s opening partner for the 1993 Ashes tour and beyond.
Smith’s time at the top may appear wasted to some, but it has also bought time for others.
