A pair of singular moments could be glimpsed from the stands at Perth Stadium to epitomise the combination of rare skill and exceptional hunger that are driving Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne into the top echelon of Test match history.
When Smith reached three figures, his second hundred of the year and the 29th of his career at a rate of production second only to Sir Donald Bradman, he offered a happy but perfunctory celebration, indicating how many more runs he still wanted.
Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne put on 251 together in Perth.Credit:Getty
Not long later, in the moments before lunch, Labuschagne’s spinal innings of 204 ended with a rare lapse and a feather touch behind. His evident dismay at getting out so close to the break also underlined how Labuschagne saw things: this wasn’t 200 made so much as 300 lost.
As a pair, Smith and Labuschagne bring well-documented quirks to the pitch and to the Australian dressing room. But they also offer deep wells of thought on the science of batting that are married happily to rare hand eye coordination and an obsession with doing things better than before.
In terms of his contributions to the national team so far, Labuschagne has made the prospect of bowling in Australia a truly frightening one for opponents who, on the plane down under, could be excused for dreaming of bounce, pace, seam and wickets.
The way Labuschagne has now adapted to the second cycle of how bowlers try to attack him confirms that he is not a cricketer who only had one rich period in him – a not uncommon thing down more than 150 years of Test cricket.
Part of his mentality is to recognise the importance of starting series and summers well, something he actually does even better than Smith has.
“The ability to start your series well, just try to be as disciplined as you can, just getting runs in that first one or two games changes the whole dynamic,” Labuschagne said. “It gives you confidence, that ability to trust your game.
“Whether it’s club cricket, Shield cricket, Test cricket, I always try to make a really concerted focus on that first game of the series, to get runs on the board sets it up for the team for that game, but also for myself.”
Smith, of course, has prospered through numerous iterations of opponents trying to find ways past him. Constrained in his scoring by short balls, straight lines and leg side fields since the end of his phenomenal 2019 Ashes campaign, Smith spent much of this year rethinking his methods, particularly after he failed to find fluency in Pakistan.
The outcome of those conversations and net sessions, shared with Labuschagne and others, was a simplified method, abandoning his trademark cross ways shuffle and balancing more equitably between front foot and back. From the moment he unveiled the change in Sri Lanka, Smith has looked younger and more nimble than his 33 years.
It’s an immutable fact of Test match careers that even the very best of players experience phases of reduced effectiveness, for reasons technical, tactical, mental or physical. Even Bradman endured a period of difficulty and ill-health spanning the period from the 1932-33 Bodyline series until his promotion to captaincy in 1936-37.
Sachin Tendulkar poses for a selfie with Brian Lara.Credit:AAP
More recently, the modern greats Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar each faced stretches in which the dominant play that made their names gave way to protracted struggles to replicate such feats. In each case, the wages of captaincy and politics affected them in addition to bowlers finding better avenues down which to harry them.
But as Lara, and then Tendulkar entered their mid-30s, they found a second wind. For Lara, that meant 56 Tests for 5820 runs at 58.78 with 19 hundreds, including his reclaiming of the world Test record score before his 2006 retirement.
In Tendulkar’s case, a passage of 51 Tests between 2007 and 2012 reaped 4698 runs at 58.72 and 16 of his record 51 centuries. If Tendulkar trailed off again after that, as Ricky Ponting also did at the back end of a long stint as captain of Australia, it demonstrated mainly that all careers must also come to an end.
In Smith’s tale, there is now the distinctly enticing possibility that his career average of 61.47 may not have to be the high-water mark.
For if Lara and Tendulkar could raise themselves from around 50 to around 60 in a state of maturity, then Smith might actually be able to produce something like 70 runs an innings now he has opened up so much more of the ground from which to score.
Upon reaching his own 200 in early evening, Smith kept businesslike in marking the milestone. He’s chasing history that very few have ever been able to contemplate; Labuschagne, five years the younger, is eagerly chasing Smith.
