The Steven Smith Question

[GuyFromLancs]

Two conflicting opinions I've heard expressed this week:


1. His success is ruining cricket because he has a horrible style and he's just compiling masses of runs on dead tracks in a near-dead era of the sport.


2. He's an inspiration. A guy with a homegrown technique who climbed from a number 8 batsman and part-time leggie, to by far the best batsman on the planet, and maybe an all time great.


... I'm not advocating either of these with this opening post. I'm just interested in how people see it.

Either of these or somewhere in the middle??

 

[Woodster]

Two conflicting opinions I've heard expressed this week:


1. His success is ruining cricket because he has a horrible style and he's just compiling masses of runs on dead tracks in a near-dead era of the sport.


2. He's an inspiration. A guy with a homegrown technique who climbed from a number 8 batsman and part-time leggie, to by far the best batsman on the planet, and maybe an all time great.


... I'm not advocating either of these with this opening post. I'm just interested in how people see it.

Either of these or somewhere in the middle??

Somewhere in between the two points. I mean I certainly wouldn't say he's ruining cricket at all, he's just displaying some very impressive attributes, even on the flat pitches, that are not always easy on the eye for spectators.

I think it's certainly closer to the second one, I mean to reach the level of performance and level of consistency with his style and how he looked when he was younger, I would have given him almost no chance of becoming the run machine he has, testament to hard work and backing yourself and your technique to succeed.

Time will tell with regards being an all time great, he's set an excellent platform for himself, will be very interested to see how he goes on the tour of South Affrica.

 

[GuyFromLancs]

Yeah - he's on a bit of a Ronaldo run of form at the moment.


Wonder what his stats will look like at a hundred tests. I remember Ponting's average hovering in the 60 mark around 2005-06.

 

[vcs]

2

 

[Gob]

Interested to know Blocky's opinion in this

 

[MediumFast]

He is great but not really that different from Lara, Ponting, Kallis and Tendulkar in their pomp. The low scoring phase is inevitable to "balance" the batting average to say 55 or so.

 

[anil1405]

There will be debates coming up in future where people will say he played in batsmen friendly conditions but the kind of circumstances he keeps scoring runs (when his team is in trouble) is amazing. Hope someone could keep track of match situations when he keeps piling on these runs.

 

[Daemon]

Tbf his team is pretty **** so he's almost always in a tough situation

 

[Slifer]

Interested to know Blocky's opinion in this

No

 

[Gob]

There will be debates coming up in future where people will say he played in batsmen friendly conditions but the kind of circumstances he keeps scoring runs (when his team is in trouble) is amazing. Hope someone could keep track of match situations when he keeps piling on these runs.

Who doesn't these days though. The important thing is he also makes them when its difficult (Pune, Centurian, SCG 13/14 etc)

I've been watching this from BT and honestly the constant bickering from Swann about how Smith won't make a run when its swinging in England based on basically two innings was pretty annoying for a) he isn't playing in England and b) its not the swing that was troubling him then or in Adelaide but the movement of the pitch which is almost impossible to play for anyone.

 

[S.Kennedy]

Smith has these weird tics and bodily spasms like he is a nervous wreck but somehow he has incorporated these into his game. Whatever his style it seems to work for him.

 

[fredfertang]

Much the same was said about Bradman

 

[SeamUp]

I will never forget on an ODI tour to Australia (think our last one) - first time we really felt the Smith wrath. I think Morkel started laughing when he was squeezing balls just outside off-stump for 4 backward of square on the leg-side.

I wonder if there will ever be a period where a bowling team will feel in the groove on him and open up weakness options for other teams to take forward. Right now it looks unlikely.

To answer the question. Of course closer to 2 than 1 - 1.80 for me.

 

[Tannhauser]

If his success is ruining cricket then christ knows how folk would have dealt with Bradman today. More power to him, it's up to the rest to catch up, surely? I mean, I thought the whole point of sport was to strive to beat and to overcome the best, rather than wave the white flag and go home as soon as the opponent shows excellence.

Here's the rub though. Steve Smith will need to have a series like this one again, but this time in English conditions, to be considered an all-time great. Until then, and as great a player as he is (and I agree that going from a No. 8 part-time leggie to where he is today is outrageously impressive), he's being judged on Aussie roads and therefore shouldn't be part of such a conversation.

He's an odd fellow at the crease though. I look at him sometimes and think, 'WTF is this guy doing averaging 60 in Test cricket, he isn't fit to lace [insert Australian great of 97-07]'s boots'. But there you go.

 

[Burgey]

When great players come along people always say they score runs in easy conditions, against bad bowlers etc. Smith, like the rest, scores them pretty much everywhere.

They’ll sort him out in India, England, SA, wherever. They’ll sort him out whe it bounces/ spins/ swings etc. Doesn’t happen.

The bloke is a machine. And part of his genius is he actually DGAF what he looks like or how he gets them. He just gets it done. If it takes 300 balls he does it; if he can get them in 140 balls he does it.

He’ll nick off or go cheaply occasionally, but if you watch him after a couple of digs where he hasn’t scored (seen it in odi series, for example) you can physically see him just doing whatever it takes to make runs next time around, even to the point where he reduces the excessive pre-delivery moment to make sure his head is still.

Like most people on here, I’ve watched a lot of Cricket, going back to the 70s in my case, and dead set I’ve never seen another player like him. Not because he fidgets (Randall and others have done that), not because he walks across (Boonie, Kat), not because he has the backlift to gully (Walters) or because he’s determined (all the great players). I think it’s because you can *see* the determination manifest itself in him, sometimes even within a single over.

Without sounding disparaging, I reckon if he isn’t on the spectrum, he can surely wave to it from where he’s standing, and he just channels himself into making runs. Nothing else matters to him at all. It’s actuallly ****ing scary.

 

[Burgey]

He is great but not really that different from Lara, Ponting, Kallis and Tendulkar in their pomp. The low scoring phase is inevitable to "balance" the batting average to say 55 or so.

Dunno how he’ll cope, ending up with an average of 55 or so. Poor bastard.

 

[Coronis]

I'll only rate him when he can make a score vs Bangladesh in Bangladesh.

 

[Burgey]

Did the people who are saying he makes runs only on Aussie roads not watch him in Brisbane? Or even Hobart last year when he made 48* out of a hideous team total of 80? I mean, he got 40 in Adelaide under lights this year and England was **** a hoop like he’d jagged a pair.

 

[Gob]

If his success is ruining cricket then christ knows how folk would have dealt with Bradman today. More power to him, it's up to the rest to catch up, surely? I mean, I thought the whole point of sport was to strive to beat and to overcome the best, rather than wave the white flag and go home as soon as the opponent shows excellence.

Here's the rub though. Steve Smith will need to have a series like this one again, but this time in English conditions, to be considered an all-time great. Until then, and as great a player as he is (and I agree that going from a No. 8 part-time leggie to where he is today is outrageously impressive), he's being judged on Aussie roads and therefore shouldn't be part of such a conversation.

He's an odd fellow at the crease though. I look at him sometimes and think, 'WTF is this guy doing averaging 60 in Test cricket, he isn't fit to lace [insert Australian great of 97-07]'s boots'. But there you go.

Pretty sure his away record alone is better than the over all records of the other three.

Tend to agree with that bit about England. He over came the Indian challenge brilliantly and if he leads Aust to an away ashes win in 19 while doing his bit with the bat he'll go down as a legitimate ATG and he'll only be 30.

 

[Tannhauser]

Without sounding disparaging, I reckon if he isn’t on the spectrum, he can surely wave to it from where he’s standing, and he just channels himself into making runs. Nothing else matters to him at all. It’s actuallly ****ing scary.

I'd be upset if this were to be taken as a dig, but there have been occasions when listening to him talk where I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thinking of the spectrum and his place thereon. He strikes me as inhabiting a savant's plain.