Steve Smith keeps finding cash rewards

Star batsman Steve Smith has made some successful investments, including Koala.com as shown on his bat. Picture. Phil Hillyard

Steve Smith just can’t help himself at the moment. Days after scoring consecutive one-day centuries he has cashed in on the stock market at an even better strike rate.

The former Australian captain purchased a $200,000 stake in ­financial technology company Cashrewards in August which bought him 700,000 shares.

After the company went public this week his $200k investment is now worth around $1.4 million. That’s $1.2m in 48 hours, a strike rate that makes his pair of 62-ball centuries look rather pedestrian.

It’s not the first time Smith has struck gold off the field. His name often appears in the real estate pages but it is his eye for a successful start-up company that is nearly as good as his eye for the cricket ball.

A prominent blue sticker that says “Koala.com” on the back of his bat is not a reference to Smith’s status as Australian cricket’s ­protected species (so the old dressing room gag goes) but instead an advertisement for a mattress ­company he part owns.

Five years ago, Smith paid $100,000 for a 10 per cent stake in Koala before it had sold a single bed. Koala is now a global brand and Smith’s initial $100k outlay is now worth around $13m.

All this is rather ironic considering the notoriously fidgety Smith is apparently the world’s worst sleeper, needing an app that simulates the sound of rain drops to help him quell the nightly racket in his brain. When that doesn’t work, he stays up late playing ­guitar or practising his batting. The constant tapping on the floor of his hotel room hardly endears him to his neighbours.

Openers all right again

There’s been great excitement in cricket circles at the prospect of seeing young Victorian prodigy Will Pucovski open the batting with Queenslander Joe Burns at Adelaide Oval on December 17.

There’s still a couple of Australia A games to go before the pairing is locked into place for the first Test against India but, should they get the gig, it will be the first time since Michael Slater and Greg Blewett 20 years ago that two right-handers have opened the batting in a Test for Australia.

Wellington’s Basin Reserve played host to Blewett’s final Test match, where he scored a duck and 25 in Australia’s six-wicket win over New Zealand in March of 2000. At the other end, Slater scored 143 in the first innings and 12 in the second to end a 13-Test partnership that, on average, yielded a creditable 45.95 runs.

The No 3 that game was none other than Justin Langer, current coach of the Australian team and a noted left-hander who would form one of Australia’s greatest opening partnerships with ­Matthew Hayden (another cacky) in the final Test of the 2001 Ashes tour.

Australian cricket fans are excited to finally see Pucovski in action on the international stage after at least two false starts, but for AWAAT it is the potential rare sighting of two righties at the top of the order that warms the soul.

It’s just so bloody rare.

Before Blewett and Slater, there was an 11-year gap back to the previous right-handed opening pair. David Boon and Geoff Marsh combined for 24 Tests at an average of 46.78 between 1985 and 1988 — by far our most successful right-handed opening duo after scoring 1871 runs together.

Marsh played one Test with ‘Fat Cat’ Greg Ritchie as his opening partner against England at the SCG in 1987. NSW’s John Dyson and WA’s Bruce Laird played two Tests together in 1982 (avg 88.5).

You might struggle to remember the Blewett-Slater duo but, such is the dearth of such combos, they were actually Australia’s fourth most successful right-handed opening partnership in history. Ahead of them are Jim Burke and Colin McDonald (1151 runs over 18 Tests at 37.13 between 1956-59) and the great Bill Brown and Jack Fingleton (1020 over 10 Tests at 63.75 between 1935-38).

Same, same – but better

In a perfect world, selectors ­usually like to see a leftie-rightie combo see off the new ball but ­history suggests we shouldn’t worry too much.

The aforementioned Langer-Hayden partnership (both left-handed) would go on to become Australia’s most prolific opening duo in history, reaping 5655 at an average of 51.41 — the second best in Test history behind West Indies greats Desmond Haynes and Gordon Greenidge (6482 at 46.63) who are both righties.

Third on the all-time list is England’s Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook (both lefties).

Recent selection decisions suggest Aussie selectors rightfully don’t care too much.

Injured left-hander David Warner has had 11 different partners join him at the top of the order during his 84-Test career so far.

There were: Phillip Hughes(left),Ed Cowan (left), Chris Rogers (left), Matt Renshaw (left), Shaun Marsh (left), Cam Bancroft (right), Usman Khawaja (left), Shane Watson (right), Glenn Maxwell (right), Marcus Harris (left) and Burns (right).

Vics make sport of life

We hardly needed the proof but Twitter has provided it for us anyway. Victoria is officially the most sports-crazed state in ­Australia, according to data ­collected by the social media platform. More than half of Victorians (52 per cent) are likely to ask someone about their favourite sports team rather than what they do for work. We can’t be sure of the other states but we’ll take a stab:
NSW: property prices.
South Australia: Victorians.
Western Australia: GST, borders and sharks.
Tasmania: Bloody Mainlanders.
Queensland: Queenslanders.

Aside from talking sport more, Victorians are also most likely to go on a sports-related pilgrimage (OK, maybe not this year). It is evidence Twitter researchers suggest means Vics use sport to identify themselves more than people from other states.

We’d qualify this by suggesting the range of sports Victorians talk about might be rather limited. A Melbourne-based colleague once expressed astonishment when he discovered that rugby (that’s rugby union, not rugby league) was big in Japan and Argentina.

And we still remember standing in a Melbourne pub, after somehow convincing the bar manager to put on a Wallabies-France Test, listening to perhaps the world’s most famous national anthem, La Marseillaise.

“Hang on, why are they playing the Brisbane Lions song?” exclaimed one confused barfly.

BC’s tip of the week

The Fremantle Doctor, the sou’westerly wind, will influence the outcome of races at Ascot on Saturday afternoon, warns Brendan Cormick: “With a 20-30-knot breeze at her back, Inspirational Girl (Race 8, No 12) can blow them away in the Group I Kingston Town Classic.”

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