Steve Smith the stuff of English nightmares

If Steve Smith has driven England insane it is understandable. He has been at the crease for nearly 24 hours in this Ashes series.

Australia’s Steve Smith acknowledges the applause after being dismissed for 211 at Old Trafford on day two of the fourth Ashes Test. Picture: Getty Images

If Steve Smith has driven England insane it is understandable. He has been standing at the crease for the best part of 24 hours in this Ashes series. Granted, he wasn’t there for the second innings at Lord’s and the third Test at Headingley, but that was like the pause towards the end of a horror movie when it looks as if the haunted have survived only for the horror to reprise itself with twice its previous intensity.

Does England captain Joe Root see him when he closes his eyes? Does he see him in the shadows on his front lawn as he draws the curtains before bed, a ghostly effect on his face from the garden light?

Will Jack Leach have visions of his heel coming down like a knife in front of the line while he showers? It was the cruellest of twists for the spinner who had Smith caught on day two and then reprieved by replay because the Englishman had overstepped.

Will paceman Jofra Archer see that gentle return catch pass him by in the early morning fog when his final moments come and life’s highlights reel plays out?

Do the bowlers have visions of Smith at the end of their beds? Is he bending his knees, weighing the bat in his stance, startling them with a post-leave shape? A Chucky Doll in pads.

If madness is repeating the same behaviour and expecting a different result it must also be the outcome of getting the same result no matter what course of action you try.

England must know how Wile E. Coyote felt in pursuit of the Road Runner.

They don’t know how to rid themselves of Smith.

He was only clearing his throat when he came here in 2015. He scored a double-century at Lord’s and another ton at The Oval, but the bear hadn’t been poked yet. The first provocation was self-inflicted, a 12-month ban from what he loves, the second was when you dared to knock him out of the three innings before the fourth Test. Why did you have to go and do that?

He played nine innings here four years ago and faced 808 balls for 508 runs, this time he has played only four innings, scored 589 runs and faced 906 balls. He has made almost as many runs as the next three Australian highest scorers have made in their 18 innings combined.

Smith did play a loose shot or two. There was one against Leach that ballooned into the air and fell between two despairing fielders. He was only 108 at the time. And another when he edged the spinner to slip when he was 118 only to discover that the gods in their infinite cruelty still had not grown tired of watching him, or tormenting the opposition.

Smith used the reprieve as a chance to reset.

England have been fooling themselves about Smith the whole series. After Smith scored a pair of 140s in the first Test, Root thought he knew how to deal with the batsman. “So I think we’ll go about things slightly differently,” he said.

“I think we had some really good plans that we put them under pressure, especially in the first innings, his first 25 runs took him a long time to get.

“It showed that we’re doing the right things, we just need to do them for longer.”

He even knew why the plans they honed after the first century had not worked when he made the second. “In the second innings, we tried to chase things a little bit, try to maybe be slightly too aggressive early on to him and let him get in,” Root said.

And then came the Archer delusion. The one that said all you needed was to bowl short. Smith scoffed at the notion and there’s a feeling abroad that the bowler may not be all he was built up to be from that effort at Lord’s. When the slope and uneven bounce suited he was on fire, when the going got tough it all seemed a bit hard.

“Lord’s was a tough wicket,” Smith said this week. “It was up and down and with the slope, his angle wasn’t very easy with the wicket being up-and-down. That was hard work and I said before the game that if they bowl a lot at my head then they’re not bowling at my stumps and trying to get me out lbw and caught behind the wicket.”

Smith might advertise a mattress company on his bat, but he never sleeps, he lies there thinking about his favourite pastime.

“I think and visualise before I play where people are likely to bowl to me and where I am likely to score and try to picture fields that are set and play things over in my mind, where I am going to get runs and how they are looking to get me out,” he said.

A final word of note to England, bowling Root to him after he has passed 200 is a plan he is on to.

“I think that’s my third now and second against England (in England) and second time I’ve got out reverse-sweeping to Joe Root on 200 too so I’m putting that away I think,” he said.