Ashes 2019, England vs Australia: Steve Smith - Doing the impossible

He can return from a 17-month absence from Test cricket and instantly start batting with better fluidity than before the ban. Because he knew we thought it wasn’t possible.

A concussion-causing blow to his neck from the fastest bowler in the world barely halted one Steve Smith innings from reaching three-figures in the course of his comeback series. What chance did our whistles and jeers ever stand?

Australia's Steve Smith scored a double hundred in Manchester. (Reuters)

Forget the fact that his four scores of 144, 142, 92 and 211 since August has already made Smith this calendar’s top run-getter in Test cricket. Forget that he now has more Ashes hundreds in England, six, than any Englishman does in England against Australia. And also forget that ridiculous stat which states that he can now afford to string together thirty consecutive zeroes and still watch his Test average buoy above 50.

Forget all of that; Smith’s greatest achievement over this Ashes – and career too – has been to prove to us, his naysayers, that his present always holds more potential than his past. Always.

Which is why he was able to shape-shift from failed leggie to batsman to great batsman to era-defining batsman to whatever-the-hell-this-is-now-level of batsman, all while he was an international cricketer and all while our stern gaze was on him.

Which is why immediately after he performs an outrageous stroke/leave which cannot be boxed into labels by those watching, Smith always performs a pantomimic practice of that very same outrageous stroke/leave between balls to show us that he knows exactly what he is doing.

And which is why he can return from a 17-month absence from Test cricket and instantly start batting with better fluidity than before the ban. Because he knew we thought it wasn’t possible.

We booed when he returned as a player. Then we taunted him with those face-masks around the grounds, reminding him of his darkest hour and informing him that he will not be as great as he once was. So Smith tapped his bat and bent his knee and twitched a shoulder and flicked yet another single through the leg side. And as he raised his bat over and over and over (and over) again at us, his smile said that only his present dictates his future.