Steve Smith’s critics already had an axe to grind

Have Sunil Gavaskar, Michael Vaughan and Darren Gough, like the hordes on social media, been waiting for a chance to pile on?

Steve Smith’s obsession with batting has landed him in hot water with social media critics Picture: Getty Images

Were people waiting on their balconies with baseball bats? It felt like that.

Have they been itching to storm the Capitol, standing by looking for a sign from Q or a change in pitch from the dog whistle?

The pile on Australian cricket this week was fascinating and slightly frustrating given the broader suggestion that everything gained over the last three years was lost in the last three sessions of a Test.

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The attacks on Steve Smith and Tim Paine have been excoriating and excessive given their apparent crimes – which suggests pre-existing attitudes among those who got so shirtless and shrill.

Smith’s heinous act was taking his mark at the crease when not batting. The same Steve Smith who put on his whites and shadow batted in the hotel room he shared with his wife.

I’ve watched Steve Smith more than most people, I see him when the camera is on him and when it’s not. I’ve never heard the tap of his bat down a hotel corridor, but you get the gist.

Steve Smith shadow bats, people who don’t know what cricket is know this.

He does it on the crease when nobody else is there before play. He does it, like he did the other day, when the opposition batsmen have wondered off to eat or drink. He does it as a reflex, he’s probably not even aware he does it.

This is the bloke who put on his whites and shadow batted in the room with his wife the night before the Test.

Gideon Haigh defends him in the latest episode of Cricket Et Cetera, revealing that when he shadow bats in the kitchen of his Carlton home the first thing he does is mark his guard.

When informed by those who have seen Smith do this over the years, those who have condemned him shift their argument and say ‘well he shouldn’t’.

OK, but it’s not a rule and it does not support your starting position which is, basically, that Steve Smith is a shit bloke. A cheat even.

Come back with some new evidence please.

The pile on from the anonymous keyboard warriors is one thing, the pile on thing from other cricketers is another.

Darren Gough is one who did not hold back.

“It’s plain cheating in my book,” he said.

“People say he’s done nothing wrong, well he has. He’s going onto the pitch and trying to make it worse for the spinners to bowl onto a length.”

Really Darren? The spinner’s length is the crease? Bloody hell mate, I’m glad you opted to bowl seam not spin because it would have been a short career.

Even Michael Vaughan got stuck in too, but walked things back a little by saying he did not think it was cheating.

Vaughan is a decent bloke much liked around these parts and like Gough he copped a phone call from Langer over his comments.

“I spoke to Michael Vaughan as well, I thought he was out of line actually. You get it from (some of the critics), but I don’t expect it from (someone like Vaughan). I know he makes a living out of making those sorts of comments, but I thought he was out of line,” Langer said on SEN radio station on Wednesday morning.

“Everything (said) about Steve Smith is absolutely ludicrous, we have a laugh that he‘s a bit quirky and a bit different, he shadow bats in the shower, all he thinks about is batting. He certainly consciously wasn’t trying to do anything wrong.

“He was just standing there thinking about batting.

“He is 100 per cent innocent in this. He didn’t do anything on the pitch. If you know anything about cricket the wicket was like concrete, he would’ve needed 15-inch spikes to make an indent, to do what people were accusing him of doing and trying to mess up Pant’s guard.”

Paine’s crime – apart from dropping three catches – was losing control and calling Ravi Ashwin a dickhead.

He also had to pay a fine for saying something that rhymes with trucking to Blocker Wilson. It was heard on the stump microphones and David Boon charged him with dissent. It should have been for an audible obscenity but anyway, it’s the cricketing equivalent of having to put a gold coin in the jar when you’ve let the magic word drop in front of your kids.

Sunil Gavaskar basically called for Paine’s head in an interview with the Indian media over the exchange with Ashwin.

“I am not an Australian selector but his days as captain are numbered,” he said.

He was a bit gentler in an interview on these shores.

“He certainly is no captain in my view,” he told ABC Sport.

Certainly if Paine keeps dropping catches and his guard then his days are numbered, but it’s an extraordinary claim to make about a man who is celebrated for rescuing Australian cricket’s reputation and getting the side back to the top of the Test match table.

Gavaskar, reasonably enough, picked up on a few tactical lapses over the past two Tests, including not sending India in to bat at the MCG and field placements on the last day, but it’s not exactly reason enough for a coup.

Justin Langer dismissed the Indian legends take.

“You have no idea how much faith I have in Tim Paine,” Langer told reporters.

“He didn’t have his best day no doubt but after three years he has hardly put a hair out of place. He has been outstanding as the Australian captain in everything he does. He had a frustrating day.

“We’ve got to cut him some slack surely. When you set a standard as high as he does and we do, we understand we will be criticised when we fall below that. It’s not what we are about. Tim Paine, (he’s an) outstanding leader and will continue to be for a some time yet. He has our 100 per cent support.”