Smith’s unlikely return to leadership role risks reopening 2018 wounds
Years on from tearfully losing Australia captaincy after ‘Sandpapergate’, batsman will be at Cummins’ side for Ashes
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The vice-captaincy in cricket has rarely been held in high regard – indeed, plenty of Test teams have not had one at all. But in the case of Steve Smith, that does not apply. Instead, Australia’s decision to appoint Smith as deputy to Pat Cummins, now anointed as the country’s 47th Test captain in the wake of Tim Paine’s resignation, risks ripping open the old wounds inflicted by “Sandpapergate” in 2018.
The vice-captain to Cummins promises to be unusually important. Fast bowlers are naturally more susceptible to injury and rotation than batsmen, and while Cummins has not missed a Test since October 2018, a schedule that includes up to 25 days of Ashes cricket in six weeks is onerous.
If Cummins is forced to miss a Test, Smith will step up in his absence, and it is that prospect which has proved so divisive.
“We all love Steve Smith and are proud that he’s the best Test batsmen in the world again,” wrote Shane Warne, himself sacked as vice-captain because of off-field indiscretions, in a column for the Herald Sun. “But he should not be the Australia vice-captain.
“His second chance is getting to play for Australia again and, in my opinion, announcing him as vicecaptain opens up CA [Cricket Australia] for ridicule and criticism, and they should throw the code of conduct out the window.”
A narrower cricketing objection to Smith’s appointment, expressed by former Australia captain Greg Chappell, is that, aged 32 and given his history, Smith is not likely to move up to the full-time role again. As such, the job could have been given to Marnus Labuschagne, who would have been exposed to new responsibility as vice-captain, while Cummins would still have been free to call on Smith’s consul.
The simplest riposte to this argument is that Cummins strongly advocated for Smith as his vicecaptain.
“I think there’s a couple of more unknowns about having a bowling captain and that’s why from the outset I was absolutely determined if I was captain to have someone like Steve as vice-captain next to me,” Cummins said when he was unveiled as captain.
“A 22-degree day might look differently to a 40-degree day. There will be times on the field where I’ll throw to Steve and you’ll see Steve move fielders around, maybe doing bowling changes, taking a bit more of an elevated vice-captaincy role, and that’s what I really want.
“I’m really glad Steve is happy with that as well. We’ll nut out exactly how that works, but it’s going to be a really collaborative approach. Steve has got such huge strength, especially tactically out on the field.”
Naturally, the notion lingers that Smith’s chequered leadership history makes him unfit to ever be in a position to captain in a Test match. As he has admitted, Smith erred terribly in 2018 when he, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were revealed to have engaged in a plot to doctor the ball in a Test against South Africa in Cape Town.
But he has been punished, and severely: being sacked as captain and banned from the sport for a year was far in excess of all previous punishments for ball-tampering. Mike Atherton led England for four years after the dirt-in-the-pocket affair. Altogether more seriously, Graham Gooch captained the England Test team after captaining a rebel tour to apartheid South Africa.
Besides, Smith can point to work he has done off the field as proof of a new-found maturity. He has been prominently involved with Gotcha 4 Life, a men’s suicide prevention charity. He initially worked with the organisation as part of the community service imposed in his punishment, but has continued to be involved since.
“It’s difficult work, really emotional work. It’s not easy at all,” radio presenter Gus Worland, who created the charity, told the Sydney Morning Herald recently. “The fact Steve has wanted to do it is huge and the fact he got so much confidence from the fact he could help save people’s lives, I have absolutely no doubt he has grown and become more confident through what he’s been through.”
As he showed during the 2019 Ashes series in England, Smith does not need the captaincy to provide Australian cricket with leadership. But if he is handed the armband again in the weeks ahead, it would be proof that, when it comes to scripting unlikely comebacks, sport even trumps politics.