How Good Is Steven Smith

You’ve only got to tell him stuff once. he’s his own cricket coach

Smithy can swing a bat in a slap-happy T20
Images: Getty Images

Steven Who?

You know Steven Smith. He’s the latest bottle-blond to stamp across the Australian cricketing stage. He’s the 20-year-old from Sydney’s southern fringe – a T20 phenom who can hit the ball astronomic distances, scoot about in the field and roll-out four tight overs of legspin. In cricket’s new age of instant gratification, he’s the Australian glamour boy.And yet, how good is he really? It’s an interesting question. Ask a Gen-Y cricket fan – a Big Bash-watching, YouTube-trawling greenhorn – and they’ll tell you he’s a freak, a wonder, the future of the game, the best cricketing talent since, like, David Warner. But ask an old-school cricket fan – a Test-watching, egg-and-bacon-tie-wearing stickler – and they’ll tell you he’s a fad, a flash in the pan, an athletic kid with a serviceable right wrist and a very long handle.

Both arguments can call on plenty of evidence. The Gen Y-ers can point to his maiden first-class ton against Queensland at the Gabba last year. Smith was unbeaten on four at stumps on the first day. The next morning he went berserk, swatting 16 fours and a single six, bringing up his hundred in a tick over 90 minutes. It was a knock that made Doug Walters’ century in a session at the WACA in ’74 look ponderous. But the old-schoolers have their evidence, too. They can point to his Sheffield Shield bowling statistics where his nine games for the Blues have yielded 11 wickets at the bloated average of 75 and the sluggish strike rate of 112. Yes, he may have hit that quickfire ton against the Queenslanders, but he promptly followed that with 16 wicket-less overs that were bled for 110 runs as the Blues hobbled to defeat.

So how good is Steven Smith? Is he a T20 fad? Or a Test-quality cricketer? Was his selection for the Boxing Day Test squad, when Hauritz was nursing a sore groin, an inspired show of faith from the selectors? Or a gormless pandering to the T20 hype?

 What’s his story?

Any casual observer can tell you Smith is a gifted athlete. He’s strong and fast and recent stints at Brisbane’s Centre of Excellence have pared the last bulges of teenage fat from his frame. It’s also abundantly clear that Smith can transfer this athleticism to his cricket. In the field he has safe hands and a rocket arm; with the bat he’s nimble on his feet and has no troubles clearing the rope.

,but long Shield spells are his nemesis ... for now.
Images: Getty images

Take, for example, his innings for Sutherland against Mosman in Sydney grade cricket this year. Smith came to the crease at first drop, Sutherland 190 runs in arrears. In 82 minutes he thumped nine maximums and 15 fours. He brought his century up with a six. He ended the game with 134 unbeaten runs off 67 balls. Sutherland chased the total of 200 in 21 overs. But the real highlight of the innings came when a young Mosman tweaker bowled a no-ball which – according to the rules of one-day grade cricket – gave Smith a free hit the following ball. He switched his hands and took his stance left-handed. The bowler, suitably offended, bent his back and flung down a medium pace dart. And Smith – still batting cacky-handed – clipped it over the deep backward square boundary. “I’ve been batting left-handed for 36 years,” says the Mosman skipper, Sam Roberts, “and I still haven’t hit a ball like that. He’s just got a shot for every ball – and a big shot for every ball.”

What’s less evident to the casual observer is that Smith also possesses a canny cricketing brain. “You’ve only got to tell him stuff once,” says former NSW leggie and current Cricket NSW coach David Freedman. “He’s his own coach to a degree. He’s just got a great feel for the game, one of the most natural cricketers I’ve ever seen. He was born to play cricket. He knows where to be in the field and he assesses situations beautifully with the bat and ball. Bowling the other day at Homebush, with its short straight boundary, I asked him what he wanted to bowl and he said, ‘I’m going to bowl slightly flatter with a bit more overspin, get them to hit straight but with drop on the ball to bring my long-on and long-off into play.’ For a young bloke he’s a very astute thinker on the game.”

But for all his abundant talents, Smith’s path to the Test team will be as a leg-spinner who bats, not as a hard-hitting batsman who can bowl an over or two of spin. In the current climate, a legspinner is a seam of diamond, an athletic batsman a block of granite. And despite the fact Smith has a solid action and courageous mindset, legspin remains the weakest string in his bow.Largely, this is due to age. Legspin is an intricate art that defies the minds of 20-year-olds. As Freedman says, “You need patience and thick skin to succeed in the longer forms of the game. It’s not about bowling six different deliveries an over, ripping legbreaks and wrong ‘uns and flippers. It’s about subtle changes of pace and flight and angle and crease position. And Smithy hasn’t done a lot of four-day bowling. This year has probably been his first as the main spinner in the NSW attack and that’s been a big part of his development. He’s just begun as the headline spinner, bowling longer spells, working batsmen out, as opposed to the one-day mindset of ten overs, get me a wicket, bowl the kitchen sink.”

 Who’s he like?

A blond legspinner? You make the link. No doubt there are echoes with Warne – the sharp cricket mind, the pyrotechnic hitting, the hair … Recently the great man has been working with Smith, reassembling the youngster’s action, getting his front arm higher, allowing him to rip his right wrist over the ball and toss it above the batsman’s eyeline. But at this stage of Smith’s career, a comparison to Warne is ridiculously optimistic. In his 20s Warne was honing his craft in the four-day game; Smith has been squirting them out in the slap-dash of T20. The difference shows.

Perhaps a closer fit is Cameron White. Both young men are athletes, both are thinkers, both hit the ball a long way and both have struggled to make an impact with their legspin in the longer forms of the game. White’s tenure as a Test spinner was knocked dead on the dustbowl decks of Bangalore and Mohali. With careful preparation and wise handling, Smith won’t suffer the same fate.

  – Aaron Scott

What do they say?

“He’s got all the tricks and he spins the ball hard. He doesn’t get timid with it, doesn’t roll them out when he’s under the pump. He’ll back himself to knock the batsman over. He’ll keep going hard.”

– David Freedman, NSW coach

“In an ideal world I’d love him to play ten Shield games, learn how to bowl in all the different situations, not get carried away by all the one-dayers and T20s. But you can’t say to a young player, ‘We’re going to rest you from T20 or one-dayers, we want you to learn your craft at Shield cricket.’ It’s nearly impossible to do that these days.”

– Shane Warne