Smith struggles in not-so super series
AUSTRALIAN cricket is being confronted by the chastening reality that Steve Smith is no longer Superman.
You can see it is his recent numbers and his demeanour. Suddenly he feels more Clark Kent than the man with the cape.
Bowlers who once felt they were bowling to a man with a bat as wide as a barn door suddenly feel in the game against him.
Smith is still chipping in but is no longer walking with the gods like he was a few years ago.
The man who used to score centuries for fun has made one three-figure score in his last 25 Test innings.
Smith left Blundstone Arena a pained figure after ending his series against England with a skied hook to fine leg off the tireless and terrific Mark Wood.
Smith finished the fiveTest series with 244 runs at 30.5 – about half of his Test average.
It was not a disaster in a rubber featuring lively green decks and plenty of blue overall scrapping for both top orders but five Australians scored more than he did.
This followed Smith’s averages of 44 against India last summer, 42 against New Zealand the season before and 20 against Pakistan.
These numbers were in stark contrast to the series that preceded them – his comeback series after the ball-tampering affair when he scored an earth-quaking 774 runs at 110 against England in England in 2019.
That was also the series where he was struck by rampaging fast man Jofra Archer and ruled out of the Lord’s Test with concussion.
This was the first Ashes series for a decade which has not featured a Smith century.
Smith’s best score in this series was 93 in Adelaide but he never really looked settled.
Because he is such an idiosyncratic sort of player with even more movements than a circus juggler it’s difficult to get an accurate read on his body language.
But he has looked particularly restless at the crease as if he was snatching for form which used to flow naturally, if via all sorts of quirky channels. Several dismissals have been his own fault such as his last one and getting bowled by left-arm spinner Jack Leach – something which may come down to a concentration lapse.
Smith’s figures may be the result of teams doing extra homework on him.
Each team who have played him recently have tried something different with New Zealand, via Neil Wagner, bouncing him with short balls, and India bowling straight and giving him no width. The short-pitched plan, which worked for England, is a major weapon against him now.
There is also a feeling that in Test cricket, unless your name is Bradman, most great batsmen build their records on three or four amazing years which are balanced out by some poor series and so-so ones in the middle.
And it all rounds out to an average of around 50.
Smith had five years out of six where he played more than eight Tests and averaged more than 70.
It was freakish stuff.
Logic suggests the forces of gravity would eventually whittle down that average.