At 36, Virat Kohli had given all he could to Test match cricket and announced, with an air of regret, that he could give no more. It was, sadly, time.
Steve Smith turned 36 on the 2nd of June, but arrived in London with a sparkle in his eye and a sense of anticipation about what’s to come.
You could argue that an Indian cricketer of Kohli’s calibre ages in dog years. The scrutiny, the expectation, the demands on mind and spirit, must weigh more heavily, wear one down more than a garden variety Test cricketer from a country where fans are weighed by the million and not the billion.
It would be foolish, however, to suggest that Smith, of all people, has not been subject to as much as his Indian opposite number.