WTC Final | Why Steve Smith of All Australian Batters Holds The Key Vs India?
Truth be told, just one Test match or five days of cricket in its highest form, whichever way you you wish to address it, is too less a time frame to enjoy a contest no less enthralling as the World Test Championship final.
It’s just not good enough, with much due respect, to some really big names that are about to engage in what’ll likely be a captivating slugfest for Test cricket supremacy.
And while much of the cricket obsessed world’s attention is fixated on what might transpire over the next few days of the winner-takes-it-all saga, Rohit Sharma’s team ought to watch out for one particular batters.
For starters, there’s no dearth of match-winning and potentially game-changing talents in the form of David Warner, who at the back of his decision to retire from Tests not long after this contest, will look to come good against a familiar opponent.
Then there’s the likes of Marnus Labuschagne, who’s made a career out of hitting hundreds for fun.
But the one name, in particular, that still holds the charisma and capability of taking the game away from India’s grasp just as well today as over a decade back in the day is Steve Smith.
Not an awful lot has changed about the New South Wales batsman in the nearly thirteen years that he’s been part of the Australian set-up apart from the captaincy bit.
Still hungry for runs, still willing to hold his ground and still as capable of defying of attacks, whether spin or pace-infested, Smith at 34 still remains one of the most dangerous batters around in world cricket.
And from a traditional point of view, Steven Smith will be really keen in locking horns against a team he’s essentially slammed on many an occasion in the past. That the game, unarguably speaking, is the biggest platform of test match cricket will perhaps only inspire him even further.
But in reality, is it the only reason why Steven Smith will be hungry to wield the bat perhaps as quickly a possible at The Oval?
Frankly speaking, given the fact that his most recent outing against India (which was pre-IPL this year) didn’t really reveal that many runs and could, in fact, be termed a failure is a huge reason why Smith would be raring to go.
All that Smith, whose bat couldn’t evade the turners by Jadeja or Ashwin, could manage was a personal best score of 38.
And that’s about it.
But while back then, the courageous Australian batsman was negotiating with one of the most powerful sides in the game at its home, this time around it’s Steven Smith up against India in neutral territory.
And while some of the self anointed critics of the game have already offered theories such as the English conditions will but favour the Aussies, knowing Smith’s penchant for domination, he won’t be much concerned about that.
He would be most concerned about going out there and getting the hang of an opposition against whom, it ought to be reminded, he’s carved many many runs in the past.
As a matter of fact, of the 8,700 plus runs, Steven Smith has conjured 1,887 runs against India.
So likeable, as it seems, is the Indian attack to Smith that he found a way to hit eight of his thirty Test centuries against them.
It’s a team that unleashed every force in its bowling armoury to stop the Aussie albeit with little success- whether Ojha or Ishant back in the day or Ashwin, Jadeja, Shami or Bumrah from the present day scenario.
That Bumrah is going to be missed sorely will surely come to hurt india not that Smith will pay too much attention to it, for what he would do, much to his benefit, would be remembering his outlandish successes against the sub-continental masters in the past.
While Steven Smith was prolific during the 2017 series in India, wherein he hit 499 runs from 4 tests, including a 178 at Ranchi, his creations with the bat created far impressive music in the contests that were held in the earlier years.
And if you go further back in time, then you’d realise that Smith was even more menacing where it came to India’s Australia tour of 2014.
He had hit, lest it is forgotten, a hundred in each of the four Tests that were played at Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
With 769 runs from just four Tests, it was arguably the first time that the world stood up to notice an Australian batters in the post-Waugh, Hayden and Ponting era that was scoring daddy hundreds.
Smith, then in his mid twenties, averaged in the 120’s, a truly mind numbing for a cricketer who had, at that point, played just seven Test series in his career.
The knock of 192 at Melbourne is still talked about for its intent and calculated hitting serving up memories of the Ponting and Clarke era.
What’s regarded and with much affection about Smith is the overall process of his run gathering; the shuffles, the fidgety and slightly restless manner of leaving the ball, the flowing drives and the rasp cuts, all of which pass a dagger through the bowlers’ hearts.
But perhaps what’s gone rather under appreciated is that the batman was right on the mark in the very first opportunity he got to express himself against a familiar rival; in March 2013 when Smith faced Ashwin, Jadeja, Ishant, Ojha and Bhuvneshwar at Mohali, he had emerged with a defiant 92.
Though, the Australian inning was remembered for Starc’s rare guard action that produced 99 unbelievable runs.
However, Smith, then just 24, had had his say.
It’s something he’d quite like to have once again as the powerful Indian side will leave nothing to chance in its bid to dismiss one of the most dismissive batsmen around.
It’s all to play for, whether for Rohit, Kohli, Labuschagne or the enduring enigma that is Steven Smith.
(Note- it ought to be remembered that Smith’s last century v India, the 131, was during January 2021 at Sydney. So it’s about time!)
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