Steve Smith’s enduring brilliance gives England sinking feeling once again | James Wallace

Coldplay’s Chris Martin tells a story about the litmus test of playing stadium gigs. Well, the lavatory test. “When you are singing somewhere like Wembley Arena, you can only really see the outline of the exits.” During some songs, Martin explains that all you can see is a clear gangway under the exit light. “You think, ‘wonderful, this song is great’… But when those lights get blocked and everyone is going to the bathroom, you’re like ‘Gah, that song is out, we should never have put that song on the setlist!’”

The Oval. 2019. Fifth Ashes Test. Martin’s quote pops into my head as Steve Smith comes out to bat in Australia’s first innings. Smith’s arrival is met with the usual, if less vociferous booing, but after scoring 671 runs in five innings, there’s also a sort of grudging respect in the south London air.

Smith has been booed all series but there’s a hollowness to the pantomime by now and noticeably fewer members of the crowd are getting stuck in. At Edgbaston, five weeks previously, Smith emerged to play his first Test innings back after serving a 12-month ban post the ‘sandpapergate’ ball tampering scandal. The boos were hostile and vociferous. Swirling from the Hollies stand and booming out to the middle. Smith made 144 in the first innings with Australia reeling and followed up with 142 in the second to set up a resounding victory.

He scored 92 in the next match at Lord’s, a searing Jofra Archer bouncer and creeping concussion about the only thing could stop him. As a result he missed Australia’s loss at Headingley in the third Test but came back to snuff out England’s Ashes hopes at Old Trafford in the fourth. A bone crunching double century in the first innings and a soul sapping 82 in the second set up victory and saw Australia retain the Ashes.

His arrival at the Oval crease is met with the distinctive pud-thudding sound of seats being emptied and a mass shuffle towards the bars and the bathrooms. Smith’s runs have become so inevitable, his gimlet eye so inscrutable across the series that England’s fans (and more to the point, England’s players) just know that they aren’t going to get him out cheaply. Smith has driven English cricket fans to drink, inflicted upon them a sudden urge to commune with their bladder. It’s not like he won’t still be batting when they come back.

England managed to erase him from the series set-list momentarily but he returned with run-scoring vengeance, a cricketing T-1000 with a thin headband, fast-bowler aneurysm-inducing fidgety set-up and remarkable ability to whip balls on the stumps through midwicket for four.

February 2025. A friend who I was sat with during the 2019 Oval Test sends a message. He’s the sort of English cricket fan who really cares if England win or lose, especially to Australia. It’s fair to say Smith is giving him that sinking feeling again. “The bloke has scored four centuries in his last five innings but people are still talking about him like he’s way off his best. Does not bode well for the Ashes.”

I can sense my pal’s pain and frustration rising out of the screen as I read. His wretched summer of six years ago is beginning to smart once more. Smith’s cruellest trick when he was batting at his absolute peak was to still make the opposition think they had a chance of getting him out. By the time of the 2019 Oval Test this had well and truly worn off, hence the resigned bar queues, but for most of that series it seemed like he was toying with England’s bowlers and supporters, perhaps even with ingrained batting logic too.

Unlike, say, Roger Federer or Tiger Woods who ruled their sports with a sort of regal perfection at their peak, Smith is more of a glitchy rope-a-doper, he lulls you in and then whips away at the last. Serenity isn’t a word you would use to describe him at the crease, even at his most dominant. Whether it be his unique set up, one that still resembles a forgetful bloke attempting to leave the house, ‘spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch’, or the way he chooses to not play a shot, prancing as he does when he leaves the ball like an over eager Samurai inciting a duel and immediately regretting it.

Smith gives you a sniff and then socks you on the nose. “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist” the quote goes about Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects. The greatest trick Steve Smith ever pulled was convincing the world’s bowlers he was ever going to miss a straight one.

But then he did. Whisper it but Smith isn’t the same batter he was six years ago. The invincibility cloak has a few holes in it. He does miss the odd straight one now, just as he does occasionally throw his hands out and play at balls he needn’t or flick a bit too carelessly down the leg side. These days, his bat size appears less barn door, more stable. Still wider than most.

Is my doleful SMS-sending friend right to be worried? Of course he is. The Test average is still above 55 and the hundreds and milestones are still being chalked. The recent re-promotion to the captaincy in Pat Cummins’ absence has given Smith an extra bit of jaunt in his toddler-ish gait and a re-smelting of steel in the eye. The current Champions Trophy gives him the opportunity to lift a global trophy as a leader and the redemption arc that would entail won’t be lost on him, just as the chance to be crowned the World’s best Test side in the lead-up to the mother of all Ashes ding dongs won’t either.

After a dizzying and at times tumultuous 15-year career, Steven Peter Devereux Smith might be yet to play the greatest hits.