Australia's Steve Smith celebrates after ending a 17-month century drought in Tests with a fighting 101 against India on Sunday at the Gabba.
Reuters
Brisbane: As if Travis Head wasn't giving them enough nightmares, Steve Smith rediscovered his touch to double down on India on a largely bright Sunday. Smith, though, has been their long-time bugbear.
The right-hander began his love affair with India when he amassed 769 runs against them in the 2014-15 series at a scarcely believable average of 128.16 with four hundreds.
It was in this series that the New South Wales batter cemented his claim to the future-great status. In 22 Tests against India, Smith has gathered 2162 runs at 61.77, his second best average against any nation behind West Indies. His 10 centuries are the joint highest against India along with Root who has taken 55 innings as opposed to 41 by Smith.
Cut to the present, Smith is an all-time great with almost 10,000 Test runs and nearly 6800 runs in the other two formats. His Test average of 56.35 is the best among active cricketers with 30 or more Tests. But the ebb and flow of time spares no one. Not even the greats of the game.
There comes a time when nothing goes right for you for no apparent reason. You are still running the hard yards, following all the routines that you have all your life and you believe you have covered all bases. Yet, nothing seems to work.
Smith went through this phase for 17 months, wondering all along from where that 33rd century is going to come from for he had gone a whopping 24 innings without a three-figure score since his 110 at Lord's in June 2023. Also, only on three occasions in those 24 innings had he scored a fifty.
Lesser players would have been content with those numbers but it's a crisis when it comes to the Smiths or the Virat Kohlis or the Joe Roots of the game. But then the greats eventually find a way to come out of that slump, just as Kohli did in Perth. They may never be the same force they were 10 years ago, but every now and then they remind you of their pedigree. Of their class and of their hunger.
As Smith pushed Akash Deep for a single to move from 99 to 100, he would have felt the weight of the world was off his back. He raised both hands to acknowledge the cheers from across the stadium and swung his bat towards his team-mates. That was Smith's moment of catharsis.
"It was just nice to get to three figures," he said after the day's play. "It's been a little while. But yeah, I mean, it was cool to contribute to the team today. You know, it's been tricky the first couple of games. I feel like I've been batting well the last month or so. You know, it was kind of, yeah, just sticking to my processes, trusting that it'll turn around.
"You know, you need a bit of luck, I think, on these surfaces we're playing on at the moment. And I think I got a bit of luck early on and, yeah, I guess made the most of it."
Smith indeed had the rub of the green going his way. He could have been out at least half a dozen times but he fought it out. Even as Travis Head moved like a Rolls Royce, Smith seemed to be riding a rickety bicycle on a bumpy road.
He swallowed his ego and brought out his grit, trusted his new set-up in the crease and built innings brick by brick.
"I don't know if it (the century) was coming or not, but yeah, I mean, I have been feeling good," he noted. "You know, it's just about getting into my work. I haven't been able to do that yet in this series. You know, it's been pretty challenging, I think, particularly the new ball. It's been doing a fair bit (on) most wickets we're playing on."
Smith was immensely benefited by Head's presence at the other end. What Smith was to India in 2014-15, Head has been the same to them on this tour.
Where Head went all out, taking little time to get his eyes in, Smith was understandably watchful. He survived several anxious moments, even a close review, but hung on to his dear life. It was as though Head and Smith were batting on different pitches against a different set of bowlers.
"It's nice to get in a partnership with him because the scoreboard moves extremely fast," Smith said about Head. "And I was just in the sheds with him then and he goes, geez, that went quick today. And I was like, it did, it sure did. So it was cool to play with him out there today."