BRISBANE: From the moment Steve Smith strolled out to bat at the Gabba on Sunday morning, the signs were there. In the lead-up to the Test match, the Australian had been practising with his shuffle across trigger movement - something he hadn’t done in a while - and somewhere it felt like the big knock was coming.
Smith took the leg-stump guard against a belligerent Jasprit Bumrah. Facing his first delivery, Smith shuffled across so much that his leg stump was visible. As the ball bruised his thigh pad and flew, there were oohs and aahs at the media centre. ‘Start writing your copies, Smith’s back and he’s scoring a hundred’ declared one of the scribes from Australia.
To be fair, having watched Smith in Perth and Adelaide, this did feel different. His trigger movement was such that he was covering the off-stump and playing to his strengths. This is a technique that brought him a lot of success over the years, but off late he had to shelve it. Even when he brought it back on Sunday, there was a risk. Much like Virat Kohli, Smith too had developed the habit of chasing balls outside off-stump with his hands.
The question here was whether India, who had successfully contained Smith by shutting down his off-side on his last tour, get their plans right. For Smith, who had gone 24 innings without a century, it was about spending time in the middle while keeping the scoreboard moving.
While it might seem simple from the outset, for someone who admittedly changes his trigger movement and guard for almost every match, it’s not easy to shut everything down and just bat.
And it showed on the very second ball he faced. Akash Deep kept it full, Smith tried to drive only to be beaten on the inside edge. And it was not going to be the last time either. But Smith kept at it. He kept shuffling across, covering the line and the fact that India kept mid-wicket relatively open only helped him. He worked the ball around the square on the leg, kept picking up singles and doubles. He had his share of luck, when the occasional outside edges went through the slips for boundaries.
There were even a couple of occasions when India got the line and length right for him. Once the ball hit him on the pad when he offered no shot, but bounced over. The other time when it looked like the ball was going to crash into the stumps, he got some bat on it. Then there was of course the umpires call on which he survived.
Smith wasn’t letting any of this bother him. He would shrug it off, go through his idiosyncratic routines and focus on the next ball. Travis Head made life easy for him as Rohit Sharma and his bowlers were making plans for the former while Smith kept moving forward.
To put it into context, in his fifty (from 128 balls), which had four boundaries, only two fours were well timed shots. It was only from 65 to 80 overs, he took Ravindra Jadeja and Nitish Reddy to cleaners. He entered the 90s and eventually brought up his hundred in 185 balls.
The celebration, which was more relief than anything else, was acknowledged by a packed Gabba crowd who were on their feet. Smith, although underplayed the milestone, knew what it meant to him. He felt like he had been batting well in nets but without the results. The frustration grew, but it was hard to not let it affect him.
“If you go through a period where you're not having much luck - I think last week I was a bit unlucky getting strangled down the leg side - you've got to keep the faith and know that things will turn around if you keep doing the hard work. I've been putting the hard work in. I rode my luck today. I had a little bit early on, for sure. Got beaten a few times, which it's going to happen on that wicket. On another day, I might nick one of those. But, I was playing the line nicely. I was getting in good positions. I left well early. So, it was nice to get some reward for it,” Smith explained later in the day.
As for why he brought back the trigger movement, the former Australian captain said that he had to make the adjustment for the surface.
“This one is a pretty bouncy track. So I was batting out of my crease a little bit, trying to get at the bowler, going across my stance, but leaving my left leg a little bit open. When I've been doing my double trigger, getting my left leg a little bit too closed. Those balls that are skidding, I've probably struggled to get my bat down in time. I thought my movements were pretty good today. Maybe a little bit bigger than I would have liked early on. But, yeah, I felt like I was moving into the ball nicely,” said Smith.
When the series began, one of the concerns India had was Smith getting into form. For once he hits the groove, he piles on. While this match is yet to be done with, the visitors would be more worried about what lies ahead, especially now considering the fact that it's not just Head, they have to deal with Smith as well come Melbourne and Sydney.