The 'real' Steven Smith question...

[Daemon]

Looks like a better version of a jaffa cake.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I don't understand what you mean by essentially playing straight in a perfect position

He's not playing around his pad with his head leaning over to the off side, which is why you'd expect people to miss balls on their pads. He's perfectly balanced.

Also the reason you don't understand is that I'm essentially talking rubbish and making words up as I go along

 

[Daemon]

He's not playing around his pad with his head leaning over to the off side, which is why you'd expect people to miss balls on their pads. He's perfectly balanced.

Isn't that what I said. Just that it still means there's a higher risk vs playing straight.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Isn't that what I said. Just that it still means there's a higher risk vs playing straight.

nah

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Test the ****er for being a robot on drugs. Too good.

Being serious, he may not look the best but he is supreme in the middle.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Test the ****er for being a robot on drugs. Too good.

Being serious, he may not look the best but he is supreme in the middle.

It's not his fault I think he was premature

 

[vic_orthdox]

Geeves made a good point about his "technique" making him vulnerable when playing the ball back through mid-off - he's taken away this weakness by putting himself in a position to not have to play the ball through there very much, that shot to which he is vulnerable is now a ball that he can leave as he's moved in front of the stumps.

While James Anderson was setting Peter Handscomb up to have his front pad blown open and Usman Khawaja was having his weakness against spin exploited, Smith continued his unique fashion of flicking the bird at conventional batting by dictating to the bowler where he wanted the ball delivered.

So how does he do that?


How does he take the game away from the bowlers?

He has adapted his game, like no other, to allow him the strongest possible management of his weaknesses, all while providing greater access to his strengths.

And without cracking the game’s code, that’s exactly what batting is.

Enter the E-Street Shuffle.

Smith is unique in that he now has a natural shuffle across his stumps as part of his positional routine — how he sets himself up to face the bowler. You might hear coaches with fancy coaching certificates calling this shuffle ‘breaking inertia’.

Technically, Smith’s backlift is wide and takes aim at around the third slip position. The strength in this is that it is natural to drop the bat on a path that provides great access to the leg-side.

The weakness here is that the pick-up dictates an outside to in path and this plagued Smith early in his domestic and Test career, as he became a known nicker of the ball.
What is the best way of negating that mode of dismissal against the bowler?

Move the stumps on him.

There is no corridor of apprehension — to steal a Damien Fleming copyrighted line — when you do not have to play at the ball because your off stump is now no longer a factor.

It is that uncertainty that has the cordon sweating on any defensive prod with that style of backlift.

By being outside the line of off-stump, he can now comfortably leave balls without fear of being bowled, rather than dangling that outside-to-in blade and hoping that the ball doesn’t deviate to take the edge.

The most important thing here is that the benefits of the shuffle are twofold: negate the bowler’s access to his weakness, while gaining greater access to his scoring strengths.

Smart, hey.

If Smith gets out LBW, the percentages would tell him that it is unlikely to happen again soon. He has played to his strengths and as a batsman, that is all you can do.

Smith refuses to allow the bowlers to settle on one spot by moving to different parts of the crease. It is something that Simon Katich perfected. Across, back, forward and not always consistent in finishing position.

https://www.foxsports.com.au/cricke...e/news-story/c9fda05025544c52d3580b687d6f6f43

Geeves can talk some dribble at times, but this is a pretty good break down of why he's been successful over the past few years.

 

[vic_orthdox]

I don't like talking about predictions of how people's career will pan out - I mean, imagine trying to describe to people in 2006 how much Punter's hook/pull would deteriorate over the next five years.

I guess there's more given leeway given to guys with "traditional technique" - the Dravids, Kallis', Tendulkars. I think it's not so much the "traditional technique" but the fact that there's less moving parts. Punter would hit the ball almost on the move in his prime, moving into it and meeting it. He talked about it on his BT Masterclass with Gilly, Vaughan and KP the other week. And Smith is a bit the same, there's a lot of moving parts (rather than "technical issues") to convince you that there'll be some issues as you get older.

But for a Punter, there's a Simon Katich to throw back in your face who continued to do well with lots of moving parts in his manner of batting.

 

[Black_Warrior]

People on here do this all the time with players from the 'other' team.

Correct

 

[Zinzan]

I'm possibly getting ahead of myself, but humour me & assume the following hypothetical;

Let's assume he's currently half-way through his career, & doubles his number of matches played to another 60 Tests in the next 6-7 years.

Like most ATG bats, he does deteriorate slightly in the 2nd half of his career, by about 10%.

Even a 10% drop-off in his current performance would see him average 56.1 in the 2nd half of his career, which would see his overall career average finish up around 59.2.

If he did achieve this after say 120 matches, and continues to perform against all-comers and all conditions as he has to date, would he be considered the 2nd greatest Test bat after 'The Don'?

I think there'd be a very strong argument to say yes.

Thoughts?

Interesting thread to revisit 4 years later to the day. Obviously missed playing for that year or so, therefore unlikely he'll get close to 120 tests unless he plays into his mid-to-late 30s, but since the OP has achieved the below in 20 tests.

20

34

2

1855

211

57.96

3659

50.69

5

11

 

[karan_fromthestands]

He's a gun, but I'd still consider him on par with Tendulkar, Lara, V.Richards, G.Chappell and Sobers in that tier below Bradman.

 

[ankitj]

Wait, you don't think Bradman sits alone in a tier of his own?

 

[karan_fromthestands]

Wait, you don't think Bradman sits alone in a tier of his own?

Wait, you think I'll fall for this?

 

[Red]

Wtf are you on about?

what’s the eye roll?

you DONT think Bradman was a tier above? Lol.

I don’t think there’s ever been a sportsman as dominant as he was or a statistical outlier as pronounced as him in any sport ever

 

[karan_fromthestands]

Wtf are you on about?

what’s the eye roll?

you DONT think Bradman was a tier above? Lol.

I don’t think there’s ever been a sportsman as dominant as he was or a statistical outlier as pronounced as him in any sport ever

The thing is, any debate around this topic on CW leads nowhere. People will go in circles, insult each other, claim things like he would average 80 in the current era, the game hasn't evolved, and that Bradman had speed, concentration, technique(as if the modern batsmen have none of these).

I'll just saw let's believe in what we want to. My bad for reacting to it. At the end of the day, I feel cross-era comparisons are simply impossible, you have to keep aside logic and just rely on assumptions to come to any reasonable conclusion. So that's my take on that.

 

[Spark]

There's never a "debate" on the topic. It's a scattered few people saying manifestly ridiculous things that don't stand up to trivial scrutiny, essentially claiming that the game was at club standard before ~1955 and then magically got infinitely better in about ten years, and and everyone else reacting with a mixture of bewilderment and amusement at them.

It's as much of a "debate" as a random coming in and claiming the earth is flat would be.

And besides, you're the one who brought this up in the first place.

 

[ankitj]

any debate around this topic on CW

There is debate on this topic? Please.

 

[karan_fromthestands]

There's never a "debate" on the topic. It's a scattered few people saying manifestly ridiculous things that don't stand up to trivial scrutiny, essentially claiming that the game was at club standard before ~1955 and then magically got infinitely better in about ten years, and and everyone else reacting with a mixture of bewilderment and amusement at them.

This is exactly what I was pointing out. These are the quality responses you get when discussion Bradman here. Who said that cricket magically changed in 10 years? I didn't. Who is reacting with a "mixture of bewilderment and amusement"? Don't think anyone outside CW reacts like this when you discuss these topics.

I don't disrespect the cricketers of the past by saying that cricket was club standard in that time. There were other challenges in those times, cricketing gear was not as advanced, travelling was tough, pitches were uncovered, no helmets, etc. And I can't say for sure if a lot of batsmen from the current era would have done well in that era or not.

My argument was clear, how do you compare one player to another who belongs to a completely different era? How do you know Bradman would have averaged more than Smith if he was batting alongside him in the current era? The top 3-4 batsmen that we have currently are just freakishly good, how do you see anyone topping that? Similarly, there are a lot of cricketers currently who have been saved by helmets and other cricketing gear, not sure how far they would have got in a different time. We need to assume a lot of things to come to any sort of conclusion.

Again, feel free to believe in what you want, I have stated my opinion clearly in this post. If the majority of the posters here believe that Bradman would have averaged 80+ in the current era and the game was the same then and now, more power to you.

 

[srbhkshk]

There's never a "debate" on the topic. It's a scattered few people saying manifestly ridiculous things that don't stand up to trivial scrutiny, essentially claiming that the game was at club standard before ~1955 and then magically got infinitely better in about ten years, and and everyone else reacting with a mixture of bewilderment and amusement at them.

Yeah that's ridiculous.

(It was far below club standard.)

 

[Slifer]

To be blunt, the only people that I ever read downgrading Bradmans achievements are SRT fanatics.