Australia’s flawless captain evokes memory of Bradman

Run machine Steve Smith cruises ruthlessly to double century to leave toothless England on their knees

At one point during Steve Smith’s double century, Channel 9 interviewed his fiancee, Dani. She revealed how she spends hours feeding the bowling machine in their garden as her partner’s relentless pursuit of excellence creeps into their home life.

At the Waca, it was England feeding the bowling machine, with the setting on floaty medium pace, as Smith made them line up the deliveries exactly where he wanted as he scored his first double hundred in Australia and 22nd Test century.

There was such an air of inevitability about it all. England backed off Smith from the moment he restarted his innings on 92, with only one slip, a deep point and a deep mid-wicket to their most potent bowler, James Anderson.

In Adelaide, England thought they had found a way of winding up Smith by being aggressive as soon as he came to the crease with ball, verbals and field placings. Stationing Anderson, their most senior player, at short mid-on right in Smith’s eyeline when he was non-striker rattled him and put him off his game, then the ball swung under the lights in the second innings. Smith made 40 and six.

But England were far more respectful here. Their own late collapse took the wind out of them and, on a pitch with no lateral movement, they had nowhere to go, with their lack of pace and a decent spinner once again exposed. By the time Anderson tried the wind-up at short mid-on again, Smith was 127 and above it all.

This was the fastest of Smith’s Test hundreds, coming off just 138 balls as he scored at will, driving more than 50 runs through the covers and moving across to hit on the leg side when England threw it wider of off stump. When a desperate attack resorted to bowling off-spin at both ends, it was a lowering of the flag to half-mast.

When England played against Smith here seven years ago, they ridiculed him as the joker in the team. Nothing summed up how roles have been reversed more than when Smith said at the close that “Dawid Malan was the pick of their spinners”.

As it lionised the captain, Channel 9 counted 23 different ticks, fidgets and movements by Smith as he stands at the crease, almost one for every Test hundred he has scored.

“He has an aura. I felt what it was like when I captained against him and New South Wales a couple of months ago. It is just not very nice,” said Mitch Marsh when asked what it is like to bat with Smith after their 301-run stand. “You come up with all these plans and none of them work. He is a special player, a great captain who leads by example.”

His innings added another layer to the Donald Bradman comparisons that have dominated the past two days. Bradman, too, was unorthodox, bringing his bat down in a rotary movement, starting at wide third slip before coming down straight. Smith is similarly unique and blessed with incredible reflexes like Bradman, who famously trained his brain as a child by hitting a golf ball against a water tank with a stump. More remarkable is that, for a modern player, Smith rarely hits the ball in the air, just like the Don, cutting down risk and making him even harder to set fields against.

Smith became only the fifth Australia captain, one of course being Bradman, to have scored two Ashes double hundreds. His average at stumps, 62.89, moved him into second place in Test history behind Bradman. His 22nd hundred came in his 59th Test, only Bradman has done it quicker for Australia (38). This was Smith’s 14th hundred as captain in his 29th Test. It took Bradman 24 Tests to score the same number.

Smith ground England down and, after such a beating, it will be impossible to summon the aggression of Adelaide in Melbourne, where he averages 127, scoring a century in each of the past three Boxing Day Tests. Sydney is his home ground and set for an Ashes coronation, with another Smith masterclass seemingly already written in the stars.

What is England’s answer? For Bradman it was Bodyline. For Smith? Suggestions to Mr Strauss at Lord’s. At home, if England take Smith out of London, where pitches are slow and there is little seam and swing, they have his number.

Smith averages just 24.08 in Ashes cricket at grounds in England outside the capital. Green tops, swinging balls and provincial cities. That’s how to get him out. Perhaps the England and Wales Cricket Board has to be ruthless and strip the Oval and Lord’s of Ashes Tests in 2019.