After a faltering start to his international career, Steve Smith emerged as a forced to be reckoned with on Australia’s 2015 Ashes tour. The following spring he was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year.
Read more from the Wisden Almanack archive
Oh, how they laughed. When Steve Smith first appeared in an Ashes series, in 2010/11, he told the press it was his job to “be fun”. The media’s mirth was merely heightened when he proved neither technically nor mentally ready, in a series England won 3-1.
Smith disappeared from the Test side, but re-emerged two years later as a cricketer who had embraced his strengths and shaved off some rough edges. His evolution into a high-class batsman coincided with the last days of a dramatic era in Australian cricket. Smith found himself moving up the order – not only of batsmen, but of leaders. And, by the time he arrived in England last summer, he was anything but a laughing matter.
Smith arrived last summer as the world’s top-ranked batsman, having recently been promoted to No.3 in the order. He squandered a pair of starts at Cardiff, but then found a willing ally at Lord’s in Chris Rogers, who provided a sturdy counterpoint to the swash in Smith’s buckle. Their first-day partnership dictated the course of a match he will always remember fondly. “We played extremely well,” says Smith. “It was a place I’d never had much success, so I was pretty keen to turn that around. To get my name up on the board with 215 is pretty special.”
“There were a few things I was doing with my technique that had crept in. My prelim movement was going a little bit too far, which squared me up a couple of times, so I played at balls I probably didn’t have to play at.” Smith’s century helped set up an innings win to give Clarke and Rogers a suitably triumphant farewell, and offered a glimpse of what might be achieved when he next returns to England as an Ashes tourist.
