Second Act Steve

GH on the locum

Scott Fitzgerald famously said that there were no second acts in American lives; there are vanishingly few in Australian cricket. Retirement these days, of course, takes the form of a striptease: first you give up ODIs, then T20s, then Tests. But when you’ve shed that last vestige of your former playing self, it’s time to put on a blazer and dish out hot takes.

Right now, however, Steve Smith is having an unexpected sequel, so successful it might even stand on its own. In the first run of his captaincy, Smith’s record was a commendable eighteen wins and ten defeats from thirty-four Tests; in this second run, as Pat Cummins’s occasional substitute, his record is an extraordinary seven wins and a draw in eight matches. His batting in the context of leadership is also worth citing. As skipper between 2014 and 2018, he averaged 70.4, versus an overall average of 61.4; as skipper since, he averages 58.3, versus an overall average of 49.8. That reflects a modest slippage from the Olympian heights he achieved in the first half of his career, while also a continuation of the possibility that to his batting the captaincy is more help than hindrance.

Is Smith a better captain than he was? Or is he leading a better Australian team? The latter may be true, but it is worth allowing that Smith has only captained Australia recently in the absence of Pat Cummins, who happens to be the country’s best bowler. It recalls what used to be said about Pakistan’s duelling captains in the 1980s and 1990s - that while Imran Khan always had Javed Miandad in his sides, Javed seldom if ever had Imran. In these Ashes, Smith has been without Hazlewood, too, and he led Australia more effectively without Nathan Lyon in Brisbane than Cummins led Australia without Lyon in 2023.