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Follow UsSteve Smith, the ODI batter, is neither Virat Kohli nor AB de Villiers, but he is a world-class batter in his own right.
12 ODI hundreds and an average of 43.44 speak for Smith’s quality, but there’s a lot more.
Eight years ago, when Australia won the 2015 World Cup at home, it was Smith who carried the Kangaroos to the title: he finished the competition with five consecutive fifty-plus scores, the best of the lot being a stunning 93-ball 105 under immense pressure in the semi-final that floored India.
Three years ago, he struck consecutive 62-ball tons against India — after famously ‘finding his hands’ — to destroy the notion of him being an ‘accumulator’ that’s ‘limited’. And until very recently, he was one of the hottest No.3 batters in the entire world: in a 19-inning period between Jan 2020 and Nov 2022, he amassed 1086 runs at an average of 67.87 and strike rate of 92.03.
He was, during this period, Australia’s best ODI batter alongside Travis Head.
However, a year on, Smith finds himself in an awkward position.
Four games into Australia’s World Cup campaign, the veteran is still searching for form and rhythm.
Smith started the World Cup off promisingly, getting off to a bright start in testing conditions in Chennai and looking authoritative in the powerplay against South Africa, but it’s been a weird struggle for the Aussie talisman since ‘that’ bizarre DRS call he endured in Lucknow.
He first looked all at sea against Dilshan Madhushanka and got trapped right in front despite exactly knowing what was coming his way — full inswingers targeting the pads — and then played an equally dubious knock in far better batting conditions in Bengaluru. There, he hit an innocuous full delivery straight back to the Usama Mir moments after being put down at first slip earlier in the day.
Smith was up against the conditions in both Lucknow and Chennai, but at 259/2 on a deck flat as a pancake at the Chinnaswamy, the stage was set up for the right-hander to bat himself into form.
And yet, Smith somehow found a way to get himself out.
Which precisely has been the concern for Australia of late — Smith finding ways to get himself out.
Smith in 2023: allergic to converting starts into big ones
Nine games is not the greatest of sample sizes, but as it stands, 2023 is currently Smith’s worst-ever year in ODI cricket (min eight matches).
He’s posted four single-digit scores, three of them being ducks. That’s a concern in itself — considering he only had five ducks in the first 12 years of his career — but the bigger concern is his inability to make the most out of starts.
This year, Smith has passed 20 on four occasions (and 19 once). Unfathomably enough, he’s managed to convert only one of these 20+ scores into a fifty. Zero hundreds, with the highest score being 74 in Rajkot, where Australia posted 352.
It is a stark contrast to the run-machine that he was a year ago.
In the hot streak we previously referred to (Jan 2020 to Nov 2022), Smith crossed the 20-run mark 14 times. In this period, he managed to convert 10 of the 14 twenties into 50+ scores, with four of them being hundreds. In fact, he had a 48* and 47* as well, meaning he was dismissed under 50 (after passing 20) just twice.
It’s barely been a year, so what’s changed?
Dismissals against the run of play — a recurring pattern with Smith this year (across formats)
To decode what’s gone wrong for Smith, the ODI batter, is probably a slightly futile exercise considering he’s only played nine innings this year, spread across ten months.
Rather, it is worth looking into something that’s plagued him across formats — dismissals against the run of play.
In 2023, Smith has been struggling to convert starts not just in ODIs but also in Tests.
In Tests this year, Smith has passed the 20-run mark 13 times, and only 5 of them have been converted into a 50-plus score.
He’s been dismissed between 20 and 49 a staggering seven times, which is bizarre considering he averaged 87.06 whenever he passed the 20-run mark in 14 Tests between 2020 and 2022.
Most of these dismissals have been random, i.e. they’ve come against the run of play.
Un-Smith like, if you can call it that.
Case in point: the dismissal in the second innings of the World Test Championship final at Lord’s. Both Smith and Australia were cruising, and another century looked like it was there for the taking for the veteran, but the right-hander threw his wicket away out of the blue by trying to hit Jadeja for a six.
He did something similar against England in the second innings at Lord’s, and there were plenty of other instances across the five Tests in England where he departed cheaply after getting his eye in.
This was the case in the first innings of the Ahmedabad Test against India as well, where Smith chopped-on after getting to 38 after looking totally untroubled.
It makes one wonder if a concentration issue has crept into Smith’s game, wherein he’s simply unable to dominate opponents due to these regular lapses.
On the technical front, what’s been noticeable is that he’s been getting trapped LBW a lot more. We’re seeing it in this World Cup (in fact, 3 of Smith’s last 5 ODI dismissals have been LBW), but we saw it in the County Championship as well, on some low and slow surfaces.
On multiple occasions, the exaggerated shuffle — Smith’s biggest strength — has led to his downfall. He’s especially been done on occasions where the ball has tended to move off the seam late. He’s also — very uncharacteristically — missed a couple of straight ones.
It’s too early to say whether Smith’s hand-eye coordination is no longer the weapon it once was, but the signs are ominous.
Australia need Smith back at his best if they are to go all the way
After a false start, the Aussies have done well to get back on track, winning back-to-back games, but if the five-time champs are to go all the way this time around, they’ll need their talisman to hit the ground running.
It’s not just Smith’s lack of runs that’s hurting Australia right now. It’s also the stability he brings to this unit when he bats long.
Smith is bookended by aggressive batters in the XI, meaning he holds the responsibility of stabilizing the innings, which will allow the other batters to express themselves around him.
His lack of runs is exposing an already-brittle middle-order, which is in no form whatsoever.
This year, Australia’s No.5, No.6 and No.7 are combinedly averaging 19.4, which is the worst amongst all teams playing in this World Cup.
None of Maxwell, Carey, Inglis, Stoinis and Green have managed to even occupy the crease for an extended period, let alone score runs consistently.
And this has, in turn, made Australia prone to regular collapses — even when the openers have managed to get the side off to a great start.
Smith getting back amongst the runs will go a long way in addressing the collapse-mania that’s following the Aussies.
Him getting back to form is no longer a luxury for the Aussies; it’s now a need.
