For the first time in his Test career, Steve Smith is out of form

Cast your memory back to the Ashes series of 2019, when Steve Smith, arguably cricket’s greatest batsman since Don Bradman, compiled his finest Test series performance.

Having been exiled for 12 months after the ball-tampering scandal, Smith returned to the Test arena and had a series which, even by his own lofty standards, surpassed expectations.

In seven innings, Smith scored 774 runs at an average of 110.57, including three centuries, bringing Australia back from the dead at Edgbaston and scoring an urn-sealing double hundred at Old Trafford. A year on from being cast as the villain of world cricket, Smith had re-established himself as the hero. Redemption. So, what on earth are we talking about now?

Fast forward 14 months, and Smith looks a mere shadow of the talismanic thorn in English sides from last summer. That Manchester double remains his last Test century, and with eight games having passed in the interim, his longest drought since his first Test ton.

He came into the India Test series on the back of imperious form against the white ball, scoring 216 runs at 72, including two 62-ball ODI centuries. Another Player of the Series performance seemed inevitable.

Instead, Smith has floundered, registering meagre scores of 1, 1*, 0 and 8. That duck is his first since 2016, with the former Aussie skipper amassing 3,096 runs at an average of 70 between then and the start of this series.

For someone with as unparalleled an appetite for runs as Smith, on top of the sheer consistency with which he has relentlessly pounded bowlers into oblivion in the past, this slump has left all onlookers perplexed and bewildered. It raises the question, how? Below are three theories, all or none of which might have a part to play.

Ashwin and India have located a technical weakness

Smith has looked particularly uneasy against off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who has now dismissed him twice this series. Smith himself acknowledged that the India off-spinner has had the upper hand so far. “I probably haven’t played Ashwin as well as I would’ve liked. I probably would’ve liked to have put him under a bit more pressure,” he told SEN Radio.

“I’ve sort of let him dictate terms and that’s something I’ve probably never let any spinner do in my career.”

Smith’s other dismissal was at the hands of Jasprit Bumrah, bowled around his legs. Former Australia captain Allan Border believes that India have identified a flaw in Smith’s game. “I think they’ve really found a worrying weakness,” he told Fox Sports. “He walks across the stumps to get to that onside, with those two fielders they had today, it worries him that he is going to chip it to them if he’s not careful and the bowling is high quality.”

The novel challenges of life in ‘the bubble’

Since COVID-19, bio-secure bubbles have been the only plausible option to allow international cricket to safely continue amidst all the chaos. This has left cricketers with a new challenge of coping with spending even longer than usual away from their families, in strange surroundings, and unable to properly get away from it all to refresh and recharge.

Smith has now spent more than five months on the road, with a limited-overs tour of England leading into the IPL, which in turn was followed on in quick succession by India’s visit to Australia. Smith has not seen his wife, Dani, in that time, with restrictions imposed in Victoria scuppering plans for the two to spend Christmas together.

“Maybe, it’s possible,” Smith told SEN Radio when asked if bubble life was to blame for his poor form. “I haven’t seen the wife for four and a half months I think it is, it’s a good stint away.”

“Those things can have an impact on people’s mental health and preparations and all things like that. I’m not making any excuses by any stretch of the imagination it’s certainly very different times at the moment but it is different, that’s for sure.”

Having been reunited with his wife over the new year, it remains to be seen if some much-needed family time serves to restore Smith to his former glories.

Guess what? Steve Smith is not a robot

Despite his repetitive and somewhat mechanical pre-delivery triggers, Steve Smith is not, in fact, a machine. He might be the closest cricket has to perfection, but all great batsman suffer from bad patches of form. Neither Joe Root nor Virat Kohli have registered an international hundred since 2019. Even the great Don scored a duck in his last ever innings. Ponting himself has backed the “all-time great” to come good.

“Everyone is allowed to have a few bad games here and there,” he told cricket.com.au.

Perhaps Smith’s slump will serve as the required wake-up call for all: whilst we may always strive for perfection, sometimes falling short is inevitable, and as such, to consistently expect it is futile.