For the briefest moment, it looked as if it might have all been worth it. That after four days of tedium, there might be a grandstand finish on the most undeserving of pitches. When David Warner inexplicably threw it away after 301 minutes of discipline, then Shaun Marsh edged on the stroke of lunch, Australia were essentially 14 for four with a long while to survive.
Steve Smith decided otherwise. When walking from the field at the long break, he throttled the bat’s splice as he does when filthy at his own demise. Australia’s captain is often let down by his collapse-prone list, as recently as three days ago when his dismissal sparked a loss of seven for 67. This time, he alone controlled the trajectory of the game. A responsibility he relishes.
In response to his first delivery after the interval, he offered an extravagant lightsaber leave. This mannerism has snuck into his game over the last year, a motion he has explained correlates to when he knows he has to shift up a gear of concentration. “No run!” he roared after the most rudimentary defensive push – another sign of him entering his special zone. On a surface as lacklustre as any in modern memory, England needed a brain explosion at the very moment that Smith was working himself into a trance.
After play, his third ton in four Tests, he gave the most Steve Smith answer imaginable. “It’s a shame we had to call it off in the last hour,” he only half-joked. “We could have had another hour out there. It’s good fun.”
But Smith was also aware what a poor advertisement for the sport the MCG strip had become. Within minutes of the captains shaking hands, the Melbourne Cricket Club had issued a statement expressing disappointment, hinting that their new curator would bring a fresh approach. Cricket Australia echoed the sentiment, much as they did following the Women’s Ashes Test in November when again only two wickets fell on the final day.
“It just needs to do something,” Smith said. Earlier in the Test, of course, he was the one stuck in the quicksand trying to remove Alastair Cook. “It hasn’t changed over five days and I’d say if we were playing for the next couple of days it probably wouldn’t change at all either. It’s got to find a way to have some pace and bounce, or take some spin.” Something. Anything.
It did not reverse either, Smith noted, because leather gets soft when smashed into rock for hours on end. Funny that. In turn, the ball did not carry. Three catching covers were more commonly employed than three behind the wicket. “The keeper and the slips, we were standing so close and I just don’t think it’s good for anyone,” Smith continued. “There’s absolutely nothing in it for the bowlers.”
Smith’s dismay did not completely overshadow another day of wonderstats for the world’s top-billed batsman. At his final chance, he jumped from third to first for most runs this year, finishing with 1,305 at 77. His 604 in the series so far means he could bag a pair in Sydney next week and still average 100. At the MCG, he gets his runs at 136 per dismissal, having now banked centuries in four consecutive Boxing Day Tests.
Thee numbers go on and on. They always do with Smith. When asked if he had an appreciation of the comparisons to Bradman that come as a result, he acknowledged that he reads what is written but tries not to drink his own bathwater.
“You can never be satisfied and never think you’re too good for the game,” he said. “The game can come back to bite you pretty quickly.” As a player who did it tough to begin with, he knows that truism better than most.
It also gives him an affinity with Mitchell Marsh, who proved the ideal partner for Smith in sucking the life from the contest. The quintessential Gen-Y product, the all-rounder is usually known for plonking balls out of the stadium, not settling in for 29 off 166. A sign of the Western Australian’s growing comfort at the top level was that he prioritised the second number over the first.
Walking off the ground, Marsh shared with his captain how proud he was, noting that he did not believe he could have played that innings even 12 months ago. “He’s come a long way,” Smith said simply.
The result was Australia’s second hard-fought draw of 2017, after the effort at Ranchi when Shaun Marsh and Peter Handscomb did the spadework. This was the year Smith’s side eventually learned how to calmly reach a shared result. A worthy legacy of an otherwise forgettable week.