Our peerless knight against the king
He bowled to some great batsmen, Sir Richard Hadlee, but is adamant there’s been no-one like Steve Smith.
On Hadlee’s ranking list England’s Geoffrey Boycott was the toughest to dismiss; Pakistan’s Javed Miandad the most aggravating; West Indies’ Viv Richards the most dominant and Australia’s Greg Chappell the most complete.
‘‘But I never bowled to anyone as unorthodox as [Smith],’’ Hadlee told ‘‘And I would find it very annoying bowling to him like many others have, because of his batting routine and how fidgety he is when he faces up.’’
That leads to the obvious question: how would New Zealand’s greatest cricketer and former world recordholder with 431 test wickets have tried to dismiss Australia’s modern-day Don Bradman?
It’s a task that proved largely beyond England’s bowlers in the Ashes series, and one that will occupy Black Caps spearhead Trent Boult and company before the much-awaited three-test series in Australia, starting in Perth on December 12.
Hadlee describes Smith’s recent batting as ‘‘phenomenal’’, having averaged 110 in the Ashes and pushed his career mark to 64.56 from 68 tests – second only to Bradman’s 99.94 on the all-time list.
On the million dollar question, Hadlee has some thoughts on how he would have tried to remove Smith at his peak in the 1980s. But he doesn’t guarantee success:
1. Don’t let him settle
‘‘As soon he comes into bat, you’ve got to get him early. Stick to the basics of attacking that off stump, whether he plays at you or lets you go, so be it. You’ve got to try to get him out early with a nick or a ball coming back and hitting him on the
At a glance
Highest test career batting averages (minimum 20 tests):
99.94: Don Bradman (Australia) – 52 tests
64.56: Steve Smith (Australia) – 68 tests
61.87: Adam Voges (Australia) – 20 tests
60.97: Graeme Pollock (South Africa) –
23 tests
60.83: George Headley (West Indies) –
22 tests
Next highest current players:
53.14: Virat Kohli (India) – 79 tests
52.22: Kane Williamson (NZ) – 74 tests
49.87: Cheteshwar Pujara (India) – 70 tests pads. The way he comes right across in front of the stumps, if he misses he’s going to be dead most times but he doesn’t miss often.’’
2. Stick to your plans
‘‘Bowlers will get frustrated and try and do too much and get too straight and he’ll just ping you on the leg side, then you go wider and he’ll smash you through the off side. There will be a time if you can’t get him out you’ve just got to be patient: ‘There’s my line, if you want to play at me you do it’.
‘‘If it’s six inches outside off stump or three inches outside off stump you’ve just got to stay there, stay there, until he makes a mistake. In the meantime he’ll collect runs, invariably hundreds the way he’s going.’’
3. Keep your cool
‘‘He’s difficult, and those idiosyncrasies where he lets the ball go and arcs his bat and turns his body, gosh that would annoy me.
‘‘It’s a mind game, and the signals he gives the bowler and fielding team is that ‘I’m in total control here, you’re not going to get me out whatever you do, I can play you’. It’s something Javed Miandad did, he egged the bowlers on with the way he batted.
‘‘Different technique, but it’s a psychological approach and it can have a hugely negative effect, soul destroying on the bowlers.’’
So is there any hope for bowlers against Smith?
Hadlee says yes, that Smith is human and like all greats will have a trot of low scores at some stage. ‘‘He may start to think ‘I’m not as invincible as I have been and people have worked me out’.
‘‘Some negativity could come into his game.
‘‘At the moment he’s on an extreme high and bowlers will fear him. Until that other situation happens he’ll march on and score a lot of runs.
‘‘Our guys will find it tough in Australia bowling to him, that’s a real challenge.
‘‘If someone like Boulty or Tim [Southee] can knock him over early then it’s a different ball game. If they don’t, then there’s potentially a lot of runs coming.’’
Hadlee still rates Boycott, the dour England opener, as the toughest wicket he tried to snare.
He was frustrating in a different way to Smith, in that he’d never take a bowling attack apart but would just accumulate singles and the occasional boundary. And bat. And bat.
‘‘He got 151 first-class hundreds, for goodness sake, he was a very difficult man to get out. But the batsman who was the most explosive and dominant was Viv Richards. Good balls would go for four or six.
‘‘And the most complete batsman I bowled to was Greg Chappell; a fantastic player, tall, elegant, liked to get the four ball away quickly and could play all around the wicket.
‘‘He had all the shots and I’d put him in my top-five without question.’’