Steve Smith ‘makes it look way too easy it hurts’ says Matthew Wade

To watch Steve Smith bat at Edgbaston this week was to witness a master of his art enter a state of cricketing grace. Matthew Wade had the perfect view for a time, and could barely believe what he was seeing.

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Steve Smith makes batting look so easy, his teammate Matthew Wade said “it hurts”.

And it’s hard to fathom after a batting display that has left the cricket world agog, but Smith says he wasn’t confident he was ready to enter the Ashes fray until just two days before the first Test.

But he was so confident by then that he had found the batting “rhythm” he was looking for, and after his first innings century, his teammates thought a second in the game was a near certainty.

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Smith is re-writing the record books every time he goes out to bat and achieved his own personal first with two Test centuries in the same match, which he said he’s never done at any level.

Steve Smith celebrates reaching his second century in the match as Australia took charge.

His 142 in the second dig at Edgbaston was arguably more confounding for the England bowlers, who looked all out of plans as the 30-year-old batting genius made even their fastest bowlers look slow.

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It was a state of grace achieved through sheer weight of numbers, of hitting balls that is, which Smith said he needed after starting his Ashes preparation a little bit out of whack, particularly after looking at white balls for so long during his World Cup journey.

Matthew Wade says ‘it hurts’ to watch Smith bat so effortlessly at the other end.

“I wasn’t hitting the ball as well as I would have liked at the start of the week, and made sure I put in the hours to find my rhythm and my groove and going in to day one I felt in a really good place and was ready to go out and play,” Smith said.

“I hadn’t faced a red ball in a long time. It was about just finding the rhythm of looking at that coming down at me and getting out of white-ball mode and into red-ball mode.

The English press salute Smith’s quality ... and optimistically ask their batsmen to match him.

“I don’t change a great deal there, the way I play, but there is certain little things that I do change with the way I hold my bat and the way I try and move across the crease and things like that.

“It was just about finding that rhythm and it took (assistant coach) Graeme Hick a lot of throws to get there. But I found the rhythm two days before the game, I reckon, and topped it up the day before and was confident coming into the game that I was in a good place.”

Smith says he only felt comfortable with his rhythm two days before the start of the first Test.

He was in such a good place that fellow Edgbaston centurion Wade, who shared a 126-run stand with Smith, had an inkling after the first innings that there was more to come.

“Sometimes he makes it look way too easy and it hurts,” Wade said.

“He said to me the other day at breakfast he’d never scored a 100 in both innings of a Test match, when he said that I thought we were going to be in for something special.”

England fans sick of the sight of Smith would do well to avoid the local newsagents today.

Smith’s physical preparation for his return to Test cricket couldn’t be questioned.

He’s done little but bat since arriving in England; in the nets, in his hotel room, even in the shower.

His mental preparation, to deal with the crowds, the boos, the critics, should have been just as detailed.

But Smith said he didn’t think about it too much.

“There’s no real answer to it. Just going about my business, and playing the game. I’ve really enjoyed the last, however long I have been over here in the UK. Playing the World Cup, and playing in this first Ashes Test,” he said.

“Just pleased to have done what I have achieved over the last four days and been able to put the team in a really good position going in to the last day. I’m over the moon.”

As are his teammates, that the man they knew was the best, has come back as the best.

“He makes the game look easy. I was only saying before I went out, he made Stokesy (Ben Stokes) look slow at times, he was hitting the ball wherever he wants,” Wade said.

“It’s great to have Steve and Dave (Warner) back. They are great players and going to be remembered for a very long time in Australian cricket.”