Steve Smith- The Man Who Can’t Be Emulated, But Only Admired

image-liea6u2qSmith turns 34 [Twitter]

Perhaps what transpired in the cricketing world from the onset of March 22- until- March 26 in 2018 may never cease to shock the cricket fan and maybe, even for times to come. 

It could, unarguably speaking, be only referred to as a period in Australian cricket where dark clouds, for a change didn’t hover over a cricket turf, but on the reputation of cricketers from whom the world had come to expect unreal stuff. 

And that’s only because they had, at the back of their limitless talent, shown they could stun the world with the cricket bat. 

From being considered a magical batsman to having his name chanted across the Newlands, Cape Town ground and finally all over Australia as a cheat, Steve Smith had fallen from grace. 

The career of Steve Smith!

Few careers had hit such a dead-end as that of Smith, whose involvement as one of the culprits in the sandpaper gate saga derailed not just his own glowing career but hit the annals of Australian cricket with a snag it would’ve hoped would never have happened. 

To this day, how Smith, one of the best batsmen in world cricket, would’ve spent his time away from the cricket pitch, his de facto second home, wailing on account of the episode he should never really have been a part of, is something one can never possibly imagine. 

But it’s one thing to fall; how you rise thereafter is what defines you, it tells the world what you’re truly made of. 

And while his downfall, though self plotted, was disgraceful, the way Smith, the befallen would rise once again to prove he was anything but done in the game would form one of the success stories not just in Australian cricket but in all of world cricket. 

It’s one thing to produce dollops of runs against an ordinary opposition, but to score Bradman-esque numbers immediately upon one’s international comeback and that too, against your premier opponent is something you rather dream of. 

The possibility of fiction imitating real life is next to nothing. 

Smith, a freak force of nature

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But there again, being the freak force of nature, Steve Smith, the right hander seeking comeback produced no fewer than 774 runs upon his Ashes comeback, wherein he batted at 110, an average that would’ve inspired awe from even the Lara’s, Tendulkar’s and the Waugh’s. 

It wasn’t just an incredible return to Test cricket, a format where the enigmatic New South Wales man has produced 30 Test hundreds; it was a Herculean effort that yielded scores such as- 144(219), 142(207), 92(161), 211(319), 82(92), 80(145), 23(53).

For a batsman who was awfully out of form in his last Test series (v SA), Smith perhaps grabbed all that despair he had within him, drenched it into his grieving soul and came out strong time where his career needed redemptive powers. 

But the Steve Smith story built on a storied career that has excess of 13,800 international runs isn’t just about crazy runs and envy-inspiring batting average. 

The foundation to Smith’s career is a technique that can’t be taught or even emulated. Few batsman have made so many runs off the front foot as well as the back foot without ever seeming to belong to the old copybook world where coaching manuals dictate how you present yourself on the 22 yards. 

Even fewer have become embodiments of a rather wayward but captivating style of leaving the ball that finds emulation in several parts of the world where cricket is a way of life. 

Consistency, he has lots of it. The ability to score runs against big opponents, he has that as well. 

He has 19 Test hundreds collectively against India and England besides having scored 4,900 runs against two of the leading Test sides in world cricket. 

Though, the Steve Smith saga is fundamentally about the desire to dominate the ball against the best operating in the game and regardless of format. 

He’s been at his dominant best against one and all, whether one speaks of a Steyn or Rabada, Ishant or Shami, Chahal or Leach, Anderson or Wood, Gabriel or Roach.  

But what we come to see and applaud with wide eyed admiration are the mountain of scores that Smith has habitually created being a batsman obsessed with run making. 

What we must perhaps remain in greater appreciation of is Smith’s reliance on grafting, of staying put during difficult moments and of putting a high price on his wicket. 

Now, 34 and approaching 10,000 runs which once reached would be perhaps a magnificent landmark since Smith started out as a leg spinner who could occasionally bat, one reckons his job isn’t quite done. 

As a new generation of Australian cricketers forge their own destinies, think Cameron Green, Alex Carey, with the well settled Marnus Labuschagne still nowhere close to his peak, Smith’s got a real job on his hands. 

And it’s more than being a constantly enriching feature among the Fab Four of the modern game; he must again discover the purple patches within him that have endeared him to much of the wider world, having made him a figure of much inspiration all these years.