The Peculiar Joy of watching Steven Smith Bat
On the Australian cricketer and the credit he is secretly worthy of
While limited overs cricket is not the place where you would find the best of Steven Smith in action, in the first two one-day matches he surpassed expectations and scored consecutive hundreds of 62 balls each. While this does not announce the arrival of smith to anyone it does show the ability that he is gifted with, and the consequences when these abilities are manifested. Too bad this happens more often than not against the Indian bowling line-up. While the results that Smith brings to the table are unquestionable the talk of his demeanor on the batting crease follows him like a constant hum. This is perhaps the only thing other than his unfortunate involvement in ball tampering incident for which he was suspended from cricket for a year, that can be called into question.
Often described as fidgety and unconventional there is a distinct joy which can only be had watching Steven Smith in action. While he has an unconventional style, which may lead people to speculate on robustness of his technique, it is camouflaged behind a wide array of awkward movements on the crease. However, behind the camouflage is a robust armour which has been tested by the best bowling there is in the world, the injury that he suffered while facing Joffra Archer was a one-off error rather than a result of a technical flaw. While superlative hand-eye coordination is a gift that can make up for technical deficiencies, the problem with Smith is that though there aren’t any, it seems like there should be.
What stood out in his two innings filled with a wide array of strokes; which would have been called artistic if any other batsman would have managed to pull them off without making a complete fool of himself, is the straight drive that he played to a delivery that was pitched-up but not a half volley. The bat which he waves around like a wand and the back-lift which seems to come down from third-man, aligned in a perfect position very close to the body and in the line of the ball just before it closed in on him, sending it down to the long-on boundary for a boundary. While Smith did not hold that perfect pose for long, he had no need to do so either. The straight drive had revealed the aesthetic form of which can only exist with Steven Smith, which it appears he himself is not bothered to flaunt to the cricketing world, which is precisely why those who follow the game should point towards it, as there is more to Smith than the best test match batsman in the generation and an awkward presence on the crease.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxCZs5SGM0w
What stood out in his two innings filled with a wide array of strokes; which would have been called artistic if any other batsman would have managed to pull them off without making a complete fool of himself, is the straight drive that he played to a delivery that was pitched-up but not a half volley. The bat which he waves around like a wand and the back-lift which seems to come down from third-man, aligned in a perfect position very close to the body and in the line of the ball just before it closed in on him, sending it down to the long-on boundary for a boundary. While Smith did not hold that perfect pose for long, he had no need to do so either. The straight drive had revealed the aesthetic form of which can only exist with Steven Smith, which it appears he himself is not bothered to flaunt to the cricketing world, which is precisely why those who follow the game should point towards it, as there is more to Smith than the best test match batsman in the generation and an awkward presence on the crease.
While the aesthetic argument may fail to convince many cricket watchers, there is a larger message that is conveyed by the presence of Smith on the crease. He manages to ensure the that the aura of technique is significantly reduced. He has ensured especially through his unparalleled run in the longest form of the game that he is the most a batsman is not supposed to look a certain way, and in doing so he has shown that technique though necessary nay indispensable has a limited role to play. The assumption that a batsman must look a certain way while he plays cricket is broken down by Smith as he piles on runs by the dozen. Being the prolific run scorer that he is he has separated the aura that the best test batsman is supposed to have from the limited but necessary technique upon which the foundations of batting are built. Your technique does not have to devour your personality or your eccentricities, is the message that Steve Smith holds for those who watch the game and even those who do not, as this lesson holds true beyond the field of cricket as much as it does within it.
The phenomenon of Marnus Labuschagne seconds my position, as he has added some of his friend’s eccentricities to his own presence on the crease and occupies the third position on the Test rankings just behind Smith and Virat Kohli. The two as of yet form the Australian only club of awkward geniuses with the bat, and though there is no guarantee that this club will expand in the cricketing world its existence holds a lesson for people outside of it too. A batsman who seems so complex but when it counts is so settled and streamlined in his approach to the art of batting points out that what looks like a strange and complicated in not necessarily so, and lot of ideas and conception which have a hallow around them are just meaningless nonsense. The paradoxical allusion to the importance of simplicity of method in Smith’s batting is what makes him a unique presence on the field and world of cricket and beyond.