Smith: Archer will not scare me – even if he bowls quicker
Australian is relishing renewal of Ashes duel England quick targets beating Lord’s 96mph ‘Bowling fast does not get people out, you still need to put it in the right area’
Steve Smith insists he will not be intimidated by facing Jofra Archer in the showdown that could settle the Ashes, despite the Englishman believing he can bowl even faster than the 96mph spell he unleashed on Australia’s talisman at Lord’s.
Smith is playing against Derbyshire this week to prove his fitness for the fourth Test, having missed England’s dramatic one-wicket win at Headingley after suffering a sickening blow from an Archer bouncer at Lord’s.
The batsman was left flat out on the pitch after being hit on the back of the neck and Smith admitted he was momentarily taken back to the day Phillip Hughes died as he lay on the Lord’s turf after the terrifying incident.
Smith tried to play down the significance of facing Archer again but it is not until he does that the 30-year-old, who struck twin centuries in the first Test and 92 in his only innings in the second, will know if there has been any lasting psychological damage.
“There’s been a bit of talk that he’s got the wood over me, but he hasn’t got me out,” Smith said of Archer. “He hit me on the head on a wicket that was a bit up and down. All the other bowlers have had more success against me, I dare say. I’ve faced them a bit more but they’ve all got me out a lot more, so, yeah, pretty comfortable about that. If you bowl it up there it means they can’t nick me off or hit me on the pad or hit the stumps. With the Dukes ball, it’s an interesting ploy, so we’ll see what happens.”
For Archer, it should not be the blow to the neck that sticks in the mind but the way Smith flapped against him in the overs leading up to his injury. Archer hit him with a painful blow on the arm, after which Smith faced just five more balls from him and looked completely rattled for the first time in three Ashes series.
Archer proved in the third Test that he is about much more than raw pace but, when asked yesterday whether he could bowl faster than the 96mph he reached at Lord’s, he said: “I’m an optimist, so I’ll say yes anyway, but, if I don’t, I’m OK. Bowling fast doesn’t get people out, you still need to put the ball in the right area, no matter how fast or slow it is.
“I’m all for bowling fast but I’m also here to get wickets. It doesn’t make sense to just try to bully people in England. You have to be skilled to play in other conditions, know that if your bouncer is out of the game, you’ll still be effective. As
long as I’m bowling well I don’t really care what speed I’m bowling.”
Archer notably reduced his speed in the first innings at Headingley as he took six for 45 to demonstrate he can change his game to suit conditions, pairing skill with short-ball hostility. That, though, did not include the wicket of the absent Smith – a fact he aims to rectify at Old Trafford, traditionally the quickest ground in the country – in the potentially decisive fourth Test starting next Wednesday.
“Well, I can’t get him out if he wasn’t there,” said Archer, who was on media duties at Hove yesterday. “I did want to bowl at him when he came back out to bat [at Lord’s] but he was out before I even got to come back on. But there’ll be more than ample time to get him out.
“At the end of the day, I’m not saying I won’t get him out, but if we don’t get him out there’s 10 other people we can get out, and if he’s stranded on 40, that’s not helping his team too much, to be honest.
“We all know he’s a world-class batter, and has the right temperament for Test cricket, but he can’t do it all himself. Even if we don’t get him, fair play to him, but we want to win the game. I’m not here to get caught up in a contest with one man. I want to win the Ashes.”
Archer will be summoned whenever Smith returns to the crease and there is no doubt he will test his mettle with short-pitched bowling. The pair know each other from playing together at Rajasthan Royals but there has been no small talk. This Ashes series is bubbling away and after England’s tense, narrow victory on Sunday, during which the Australians sledged Archer for his dismissal, it would be no surprise if the tension became more obvious at Old Trafford.
“Yes, I’ve seen him around,” said Archer about Smith. “But you’re not going to sit and pull a chair and have a deep conversation, are you?”
Archer faced 33 balls, hitting 15 runs in nine overs, when batting with Ben Stokes on Sunday, but thought he had thrown away the chance of victory when he was caught on the boundary. Adrenalin had overtaken common sense after he hit Nathan Lyon for two fours in the over. “I thought I had messed the series up, not just the game but the series, so I was very relieved yesterday and today that we are still alive and fighting,” he said.
Archer has been on the receiving end of plenty of short balls, something that has given him perspective on playing in an Ashes series.
“I generally don’t receive much bouncers at county level, because they know I can bowl it back, so everyone just tries to hit me on the knee,” he said. “But the first ball at Lord’s was short, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth. So that just goes to show actually how competitive it is. Everyone wants to win, no one cares – and that’s fine.”
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