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Australia put in a shift during the first hour, with Marnus Labuschagne and Usman Khawaja blocking everything that came their way, adding just 13 runs in the first hour's play. Labuschagne, in particular, was defending till death, and runs looked the least bit of their concern.
Before runs became the epicentre of all Australian concerns. An innings that started as a defensive masterclass ended as a disaster class amidst Stuart Broad’s theatrics.
Just seconds before the dismissal, Broad walked down Labuschagne’s throat, looked down, and interchanged the position of the bails. Emiliano Martinez’ did something similar before the penalty shoot-out when he walked a few metres down to his right and then threw the ball a few yards away from the next penalty-taker, Aurelien Tchouameni.
It was shithousery. What Broad did was no different, and like Tchouameni, Labuschagne flinched. He then proceeded to walk back disappointed but then stopped to mumble a few words to the umpire Joel Wilson when he got out to Mark Wood the next delivery. The crowd got behind Broad, and together, the roof at The Oval was tearing down.
Then Steve Smith walked in.
Statistically, it was Smith’s poorest Ashes until this innings - 248 runs at an average of 31. Numbers also pointed out that he had zero half-centuries, and his only big contribution during the series was that hundred at Lord’s.
London had fallen once, will Smith ensure that it fell twice? When he walked at quite a pace back to the dressing room at Old Trafford, you could sense the disappointment on his face. It was akin to Virat Kohli's look-at-the-heavens expression.
But Smith doesn’t give up that easily, and neither does Australia. In the past, Smith notoriously has been on that side of the rope, where he has played the long game and scored runs at an excruciatingly slow pace.
When he was on four off 12, ardent Australian fans would have expected the right-hander to transmit calmness. But Smith transmitted chaos, and his approach has rather taken a different leaf in the recent past. He doesn’t anymore take it easy during the start of the innings but rather has this tendency to attack.
15 deliveries into action, Smith decided the only way to tackle Bazball was with chaos. First, he drilled one past Anderson before punching another for a second boundary. In the space of five deliveries in the Anderson over, he scored two boundaries, as many as Khawaja and Labuschagne managed in the entirety of their partnership in the morning. It then spread across to Khawaja, who soon found some good touch with a four of his own.
Four overs since Smith had walked out to bat, Australia had already found a way to get three boundaries, and the game seemingly found a shift in gear.
That’s been one of the hallmark differences for Smith in this Ashes. While he’s known for his temperament, he’s also managed to figure out a new accelerating game that helps him and his team rolling. But all of this only in the first 30 deliveries of the innings.
Once the initial phase is done, the right-hander usually has resorted to blunting out the deliveries. At 127/4, with both Usman Khawaja and Travis Head walking back, Smith resorted to attrition. Broad's theatrics definitely lifted the mood at the venue but it also lifted Smith's game to a whole new level.
Smith, though, resisted temptation. 127/4 became 151/5, which later became 170/6, as he watched it pan all in slow motion.
When the score became 186/7, it became mere prayers. But at that moment, the parallels were eerily similar to the Ashes Test back in 2017, played in Brisbane. Australia were 209/7, needing to score 303 to wipe England’s first-innings score.
Cummins joined Smith at the centre.
At 186/7, when Cummins walked out to bat here at The Oval, the cricket nut in Smith would have definitely drawn comparisons to the Gabba Test. The bowling attack was quite similar, the opponents were quite similar, and the tension was at the top of its peak. That’s when Smith received the one and only life in the entire knock that was otherwise perfect.
Third umpire Nitin Menon adjudged him not out, as Jonny Bairstow had knocked the bail slightly earlier than he should have. That’s what had occurred. But if your vision were elsewhere, you would have noticed that Smith put on a superman-esque dive. That’s really why Australia hot-dials Smith.
201/7 in 80 overs, Australia were hanging by the barest of margins. Slowly though, the margins increased, the barest had more space in it as Smith began to counter-attack. He began to put the balls in places that the English pacers didn’t like them.
He began accelerating at the right time, scoring 25 runs off his next 33 deliveries, building up this monumental partnership with Cummins. The lead for England started to see a decline, and they were panicking as Smith went past Sir Don Bradman’s record of most Test runs at The Oval.
But then Smith did something that he also did a lot during this last month: throw his wicket away. Out of nowhere, to an innocuous delivery, Smith shot for the stars and ended with sparse, as Woakes broke the partnership. Yet again, Smith walked back for 71, failing to capitalise on a good start.
"Would have been nice to have got a bigger lead, wicket played quite nice, a lot of us got starts. A couple of partnerships helped, we started a counterpunch, not a bad end to the day, but overall disappointed we didn't get a bigger lead,” said Smith in the aftermath of the day’s play.
Perhaps, there are two ways of looking at Smith’s knock, Australia got closer to the first-innings total only because of him. And the other, Smith could have converted this start into a three-figure score.
You ask Smith, he will tell you that he is quite disappointed.
But you ask Australia, they will tell you they were blessed to have Smith.
