NEWS
Follow UsBefore the series against the West Indies at home, Jamie Smith had played only three games as a wicketkeeper for Surrey since the start of 2023. Despite that, England went ahead and selected him based on their intuitions about his batting ability, and he did prove them right.
Smith, by his own admission, aspires to play all three formats. The success in his debut Test series has given him the confidence to “be successful in all formats for England." He scored 207 runs in four innings with 95(109) being his highest.
The 24-year-old showed that he can switch gears at will during the Lord’s Test and then at Trent Bridge, he batted in the fourth gear throughout the innings. He scored 36(54) after walking in at 281/5 in the 58th over when England’s run rate was close to 5.0. By doing that he fit himself perfectly in the English batting framework in the Bazball era.
The Surrey man has followed the international season with strong performances in the T20 Blast, where he has made 285 runs at a strike rate of 205. With performances like this, Smith has a good chance of making to the white ball squads for England, which won’t be as intense as Test cricket. By his own admission, that was quite draining for the wicketkeeper batter.
“Test cricket’s definitely more intense. The games didn’t go five days, so it was very short compared to what people were expecting and what I was expecting, but for me it was just mentally quite draining,” Smith said.
“It probably took more out of me than I was expecting, with all the emotions that came with it, and the expectation and a bit of added pressure.”
Also read: Jamie Smith shows the merit of England’s intuition-based selection
Despite the pressure, Smith still aspires to be an all-format player for England. He certainly has proved himself in the longest format, and with performances at the domestic level, England might be more confident of picking him in ODIs (where he has already made his debut) and T20Is.
“It’d be really nice to be a three-format player for England,” Smith acknowledged.
“It’s my aspiration to play all formats. I think I can be successful in all formats for England, and it is something I’ll definitely be looking to do, but you are always looking further down the line on potential workloads and jumping around series to series is not sustainable for anyone, really.
With it being so crammed at the moment, it will be interesting to see how it works around things and how things go over the next couple of months.”
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