Ashes 2019: Steve Smith calls fielding changes as Captain Tim Paine concentrates on wickets

Steve Smith might not be captain of the Australian side, but he is clearly leading the team.

Steve Smith speaks to Tim Paine of Australia during day three of the Edgbaston Ashes Test. Picture: Getty Images

Steve Smith might not be captain of the Australian side and may be banned from any such role for the time being, but he is clearly the senior batsman, leading by example and weight of runs in his first Test on return.

He even seems at times to be calling fielding changes while Tim Paine concentrates on keeping wickets.

The visitors have a 34-run lead with seven wickets in hand and it is impossible to predict what will happen because there’s been so many plot twists so far surely there must be more.

Smith is 44no and Travis Head 21no and recommence on Day 4 with an enormous amount of work in front of them. The pitch is flat and if wickets are not taken early the ball soon becomes soft and effectively toothless.

The former captain has made 190 runs in his return to Test cricket and if he can make 100 more his side will have a good lead.

He stands between England and victory just as he did in the first innings when he scored half the side’s runs.

Paine and Smith spent a lot of time talking during England’s batting innings and it was obvious there were periods that the latter was setting fields — apparently with his captain’s blessing.

It appears wise of captain Tim Paine to delegate occasional duties to a senior player when he has the gloves on. Wicket keeping and leading teams have never been a good fit.

Captain Tim Paine and Steve Smith in discussions on the field at the Edgbaston Ashes Test. Picture: Getty Images

Oddly enough, former Indian captain MS Dhoni often sets fields while Virat Kohli makes himself useful in far flung positions where he has no direct line of sight on the game.

Paine has made it clear he is not threatened and will seek the counsel of the former leadership team.

It would be insane not to use the advice of a former captain and someone with Smith’s cricket sense. The same goes for David Warner who is in the slips and full of advice.

It certainly isn’t against any rule for Smith to help set fields, but the sight is all part of the rich fabric of an extraordinary Test match that just refuses to die.

Tim Paine has made it clear he’ll seek counsel of the former leadership team of David Warner, left, and Steve Smith. Picture: AFP

Asked after his first innings century if he was still a leader he was candid.

“I obviously don’t have the armband, and that’s OK,” he said. “I’m obviously an experienced player now and an experienced player in the dressing room. And you want your experienced players to stand up when it is difficult and to show the way. Fortunately I was able to do that today.”

At times on Day three Warner found himself in front of the Hollies stand which never misses a chance to jeer, mock or abuse him or Smith.

The former vice-captain played along with the hostile home crowd, singing the songs about Australians cheating and emptying his pockets in a pantomime gesture to answer their question about what he had in there.

He has smiled, waved and kept calm through it all.

The game has started to resemble one of those wrestling matches where every time the one on top goes to deliver the knock out punch the tables are turned.

Australia, it has to be said are struggling and will have to bat well in the morning, but where there’s Smith there’s hope.

There are patterns emerging in the play.

When Australia was 8-122 in the first innings it seemed they had thrown the game away, but record 164 run partnership for the last two wickets blindsided everybody.

England was cruising toward a big first innings lead at 5-282 yesterday.

They were just two runs shy of moving into a first innings lead when Ben Stokes brought up his 50. Rory Burns was on 127 and blue skies beckoned.

Before you could blink both were gone and two more wickets fell and the home side was 8-300 and the lead was just 16 runs. You don’t want to be chasing too many in the last innings and that seemed more than likely until England’s ninth wicket pair did what Australia’s had done.

Chris Woakes (37no) and Stuart Broad (29no) put on 65 runs either side of lunch and now the Australians had some work to do before they could think about building a lead.

They appeared to miss a trick bowling to Broad and it is not clear who should wear the blame.

It took them 60 odd balls to remember that the short ball is the most effective weapon against the bowler who has been traumatised ever since a terrible injury some years back from a bouncer.

When Pat Cummins went short and it had immediate results.

James Pattinson claimed two reasons for the bowlers hesitation to do what is obvious to everybody in the game.

“Patty Cummins was just saying that he thought the ball was almost hitting him on the toe, that’s how short he had to bowl to get it up,” Pattinson said.

“I think he obviously was trying to do that but the ball wasn’t getting up. Once we figured out we had to bowl it a little bit shorter and almost hit you on the toe, it probably paid off. It’s something that we can look upon doing early on in his innings when he comes out. The ball was quite soft.”

Pattinson also claimed that with few runs to play with they had been instructed to bowl conservatively.

“We had message before we came here to try and bowl as we would to the tail as we would to the top order,” he said.

“In the past over here sometimes, we have attacked too much and Broad and those type of people have scored quite quickly and taken the game away from us a little bit,” he said.

“They put on a good partnership, but they batted quite a while as well. So we managed to stem the flow of runs. That was the key thing through their innings. Even yesterday we didn’t take too many wickets and I felt we were quite unlucky. Different day today and they edge a couple of similar balls. It’s a game of luck sometimes. Credit to Rory Burns who batted really well. Even though we didn’t take the wickets that we would have liked yesterday, we managed to contain the runs that kept us in the game.”