Steve Smith was once selected to play an Ashes Test on the basis of his joke-telling skills. “It’s about having energy in the field,” he famously said ahead of the Perth Test of 2010/11, “and having fun and making sure everyone else around is having fun, whether it be telling a joke or something like that.”

That whole series saw Australia humbled. England’s three victories were all achieved by an innings. Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke could not summon a half-century between them, and Smith, painfully raw, became the butt of many more jokes than he himself could muster. “Tell us a joke, Smithy!” England’s slip cordon would roar when he came to the crease.

“I wasn’t good enough in that period,” he reveals to Adam Collins in issue No.1 of Wisden Cricket Monthly, out on November 16. “But that opportunity gave me a sense of what I needed to do, so I was able to go away and formulate a plan that could work.”

Unusually for a cricketer, Smith openly admits to absorbing everything written about him, good or bad. “I read everything. You can learn a lot from those things and if I don’t agree with it, I use it as motivation to do better and change someone’s opinion.”

Already his place in the pantheon of immortal Australian batsmen seems assured. “Those guys are absolute legends,” he says of the big beasts who came before him, adding: “There is no reason why one day I can’t get to that status.”

To read the Steve Smith article in full, as well as exclusive interviews with Joe Root, Alastair Cook and Mike Brearley, buy a copy of Issue 1 of Wisden Cricket Monthly here for £1 using the offer code 1FOR1