Cricket 2022/23: An injury scare won’t stop Steve Smith’s pursuit of regaining his world leading form

Steve Smith’s pursuit of excellence hit a bump with an injury scare in training this week but he won’t let it stop him trying to get back to his dominant best with the bat.

Steve Smith is adamant a freak injury scare won’t hamper his exhaustive bid to revive the glory years when he once terrified the cricket world.

The Australian batting master revealed he is battling a “grumbly” hip after a massaging tool he was using on himself slipped too low and hit a nerve.

“Me being silly to be honest. I have this little device called a pso-rite, and I was hitting myself in the psoas trying to loosen that up and I got a little low and I hit a little nerve and whatever else is there. It’ll be fine. It’s just me being me,” said Smith.

Smith limited himself to light duties at training on Sunday at the WACA, but declared he is in no doubt for Wednesday’s first Test against the West Indies where expectations are he could wind the clock back and dominate like the days of old.

By trawling back through the archives, Smith believes he has rediscovered the version of himself he liked the most, and cautiously agrees with the bold prediction of Test great Greg Chappell that even after 8161 runs and 28 hundreds, his career best batting might be in front of him this summer.

Steve Smith was on light training duties after having a freak injury scare at training. Picture: Will Russell/Getty Images

“I’ve just been racking my brain to see how I can get better. I always look at 2014-15, that series against India and that World Cup period where I felt as though I was batting the best I have and trying to replicate that with my hands and feet,” said Smith.

“I still had a prelim movement there that wasn’t as big as it got to over a period of time, but I was still able to be side-on. I was pulling the ball well in front of the wicket and I was getting my weight through the ball and had my hands in a good place.

“They weren’t as closed as they probably have been for a lot of the summers I have played.

“It feels as though it has all come together and hopefully it’s a perfect storm this summer.

“While I try to replicate and get my technique to a point where I was in ’14 and 15, hopefully it can be better than that. That was obviously a pretty prolific summer for me, but if I can top that it would be great.”

Smith said he sent Chappell a text message on Sunday to told him he agreed with almost everything he wrote about the changes he has made to his game in a weekend newspaper column.

That includes, at least in part, an acknowledgment that the sickening moment Jofra Archer felled him with a vicious bouncer at Lord’s during the 2019 Ashes may have been a more significant setback in his career than he realised at the time when he peeled off a double hundred in his next Test.

Steve Smith’s felling by a Jofra Archer bouncer during the Ashes in 2019 may have done more damage to his cricket than first realised. Picture: Tom Jenkins

Smith insists his issues positioning himself for the short ball were already apparent before the Archer incident, as he gave a fascinating account of the critical work he has poured into his work over the past 12 months, desperately trying to find an answer for why bowlers like New Zealand’s Neil Wagner had suddenly found a method to restrict his scoring.

“The change I’ve been looking for has been 12 months in the making,” said Smith.

“I got my hands to a position at the start of last summer where I was close to what I am now, but they weren’t in sync with my feet, and my upper half was coming around.

“Now I’ve got them all in sync together it feels really nice.

“It can be tough to change. The first few sessions can be a little awkward and a little foreign for you after doing something for such a long period of time.

“To get that muscle memory takes a little while.”

When Fox Cricket cameras captured the vivid moment when a jubilant Smith uttered the words, “I’m back baby” to David Warner out in the middle in the first ODI against England 12 days ago, there was a realisation that a year of hard work and mental problem-solving had clicked.

“I think when I hit that first pull shot in Adelaide through mid-wicket it was kind of like, ‘wow, I’ve actually got my bottom hand back,’” said Smith.

“I’m hitting the ball through mid-wicket off the back foot in a full pulling style.

“That was what I was after.”

Originally published as Cricket 2022/23: An injury scare won’t stop Steve Smith’s pursuit of regaining his world leading form