India recently humbled the Australians by 36 runs at The Oval. This was no ordinary game.
It was a proper World Cup contest, at cricket’s grandiose stage.
Upon the completion of Australia’s unsuccessful run-chase, when the players were leaving the ground, Virat Kohli urged the fans to applaud an Australian.
He cut a low-key figure. There was nothing for him to celebrate. Still, Kohli’s courteous deed brought out a few cheers for the man.
At that point in time, you felt sorry for Steve Smith, someone who had quietly scored a 69, the most by an Australian.
Cut to a month later.
When England were left to chase a daunting 398 in the First Test at Edgaston, then if you were an English fan, you felt sorry because of Steve Smith.
He had fired whopping 286 runs in the Test, scoring hundreds in both innings. In the context of the match, his tons were daddy hundreds. On both occasions, Steve Smith neared a 150 mark.
Think of it. It’s the third big milestone for a batsman; post completing a fifty and having launched a century.
In the context of the Test match, Smith’s hundreds in both innings were mathematically, nearly the same output as England’s second inning score of 146.
How’s that for a batsman who was chided, cast away, and loathed?
This was, once again, no ordinary occasion.
It was the fire-starter to Cricket’s oldest and arguably speaking, most talked-about rivalry.
In the first inning, Smith first played the man responsible for damage control, the rectifier of wrongs the Aussies committed with the bat, before going onto become an example of all the rights the batsmen failed to do.
In the second inning, Smith was the aggressor, the extender of the Australian’s authority in a dogged contest over the English.
And he remained positively intent in both innings of the Test, furthering his contention to the Bradman-Esque numbers his jumpy, unique, very non-copybook style technique helped produce.
With the opening Test landing in Australia’s lap, it seems, Smith has only just begun. An entire series remains ahead. Should good weather side with us all, then 8 potent innings of batting, and therefore, 8 more exclusive opportunities to see how well can Steve Smith tend water to a plant he himself once ruptured.
But from what we’ve seen, at 30, Steve Smith’s career seems to have taken a giant step in the right direction again.
It’s as if long-distance runner has fired an opening salvo at an Olympic stage, resubmitting his candidature as a supreme track athlete, tying those laces again, in preparation to run a long lap of life.
It was in the summers nearly a year ago when Smith, along with his cohorts- Warner and Bancroft- was responsible for storming a controversy that threatened his career, damaged his reputation, saw him banned from professional cricket, and in the end, cast a shadow of looming doubt over a talent that was in the not-so-distant past considered at par with Virat Kohli.
But that man is back.
It’s as if the Bogeyman, who you dread in the dark embers of the night has broken his way into your living room in broad daylight.
Runs. More runs. Plenty of runs lie ahead.
Akin to someone phoning a sleeping giant, Steve Smith, as we all can see, has answered the call.
How can you ever hang up now?
