BRISBANE: Steve Smith is discovering, just like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli before this tour to Australia, that extreme home conditions are not always conducive to late-career batting revivals.
Both luck and form seem to have deserted Smith this year and without a turnaround at the Gabba, he risks falling into the rabbit hole of endless technical tweaks as the pressure grows to deliver.
How can India still qualify for World Test Championship final?
India’s ageing stalwarts have discovered this the hard way, with the turning tracks at home negating any possibility of notching up high scores, like we saw in the series against New Zealand.
After the Adelaide defeat, Rohit had said, “We accept that when we play in India, we are trying to play in very difficult conditions. It’s our choice and we know the big scores are not going to happen. But whenever we travel abroad the conditions are there to score runs.”
It’s unlikely Smith will agree Australian conditions are still batting-friendly, given the recent tendency to maximize advantage for the pacers at home, especially against teams from the subcontinent. Translating meagre returns at home to a windfall abroad isn’t always easy either, especially when a string of low scores keeps playing on the mind or becomes a national obsession.
Never the most orthodox of batters, Smith has had a horror run in 2024, averaging 23.2 from seven Tests. The drop in returns has been gradual-in his last 23 Tests he averages 35.75, and although his overall batting average stands at 56.09, the alarm bells have started ringing across Australia.
In Perth in the first innings, he fell first ball to a monster of a delivery from Bumrah, and in the second he was hanging on until Siraj got one to straighten off the seam and take the edge. In Adelaide, the ill fortune continued as he tickled one down leg.
At 35, Smith’s best days are probably behind him, but if he gets going he can still punish India in this series. Teammate Mitchell Marsh, for one, is hoping for just such a turnaround.
“We know he’s one of our best players ever and I’m certainly backing him to get some runs,” Marsh said here on Thursday. “I’m probably not in a position to tell Steve Smith what he should work on. We know he’s a class player and he’s scored a lot of runs for Australia. At times when we’ve needed him, he always seems to step up.”
Smith, who hit the nets with gusto here on Thursday, has already shunted himself up and down the order in recent times to get the runs-going on to open and then making a hasty return to his favourite No. 4 spot.
With Jasprit Bumrah waiting to pounce, his job won’t get any easier. But it’s Smith, and India can’t write him off till he faces his last ball of the series.
