Accidental captain: Steve Smith seeks Ajinkya Rahane-like inspiration to revive Australia

Twice he has filled in as stand-in captain in this time, against England in 2021 and the West Indies last year, but never in a series of this proportion or consequence. He then gathers himself and says: “I don’t know if you can call it full circle. It’s slightly weird. Not the best of circumstances with Patty back home,” he would add, referring to Pat Cummins having to fly back to Australia to be beside his ailing mother and the precarious position his team finds itself in, down 2-0 in the most abject manner. But for someone who has openly declared how he misses captaining the side, how leading the team was his fuel that propelled him towards batting greatness, there could not be a more adverse backdrop to channel the virtues of fight and tenacity that Australia had demonstrated under Smith’s captaincy as well as rediscover his own best form.

Indore: Australian cricketer Steve Smith during a practice session ahead of the 3rd test cricket match between India and Australia, at Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore, Monday, Feb. 27, 2023. (PTI Photo/Ravi Choudhary)(PTI02_27_2023_000079A)

To be handed over captaincy midway through a faltering series could be innocuous. But there are recent precedents of accidental change in captaincy resulting in an upturn of fortunes. No more optimistic than the revival of India under Ajinkya Rahane in the 2021 series Down Under. Smith finds himself in the Rahane corner — on a foreign tour where you are taking over a team of shattered morale, where the best batsman and regular captain is no longer there, where you would soon lose your gun bowler, champion side and half the usuals, where you end up handing out debuts to net bowlers.

Rahane’s plight was direr, and hence the comeback sweeter. On the other hand, Smith is strengthened by the return of all-rounder Cameron Green and Australia’s most successful seamer of this era, Mitchell Starc, the batting core of himself, Marnus Labuschagne and Usman Khawaja has demonstrated reasonable form. Nonetheless, the parallels are striking.

To stretch the narrative arc, India’s comeback in Melbourne began with Rahane’s hundred, a blend of defiance and counterpunching. Australia would hope Smith could helm the turnaround with a significant score himself. So far in four innings, he has mustered only 71 runs, though he had looked fairly comfortable in Nagpur. In Delhi, a piece of Ravichandran Ashwin magic befuddled him in the first innings while an uncharacteristic sweep terminated his second dig and left him “fuming and bedazzled.”

But Smith the captain is a different beast. In 64 innings, he averages 67.73 with 15 hundreds, that is a hundred in every four outings. Some of his finest knocks have arrived with the captain’s arm-band around him like the 141 not out against England in Brisbane, or his 109 in Pune, which he followed with 178 not out in Ranchi and 111 in Dharamshala. He had earlier elaborated on the positives of captaincy on his batting too: “I actually think I play better with pressure, that extra pressure when the team needs something more and things like that. My record probably is better when I’m captain than when I’m not. That sort of pressure doesn’t really bother me.”

Indore: Australian stand-in-captain Steve Smith during a practice session ahead of the 3rd test cricket match between India and Australia, at Holkar Cricket Stadium, in Indore, Monday, Feb. 28, 2023. (PTI Photo/Ravi Choudhary)(PTI02_28_2023_000145A)

In this despondent moment, Australia would need Smith the captain as much as Smith the batsman. The latter to provide stability and prevent collapses, like the second innings in both Nagpur and Delhi. The scores of 113 and 91 would rankle Australia. There was a time when Australia collapses were rare, and had a kind of fascinating comet-spotting quality. In this series by contrast, they feel strangely banal: tedious, overfamiliar, predictable, like a recurring anxiety dream. The openers disappear early, barring the first innings in Delhi. Smith and Labuschagne do something pointless and defiant. The middle-order just crumbles like a creaky old bed. He admitted as much: “We (batsmen) should be scoring more runs.”

Typically, Smith was diligent in the nets, stepping out and hitting the net bowlers over the head, defending stoutly on both feet. He would then busily oversee his colleagues at the other nets, cheering and chirping, but always in the mix of things. It’s the Smith brand of captaincy too — when Australia is on the field, he is often the most vibrant man on the field, chatting with bowlers, setting fields, and laying traps, sometimes irritating the opposition batsmen. There is enough archival footage from Australia’s previous tour to India, some of which would make you cringe. Contrastingly. Cummins is more introverted, less on-your-face captain, though sharp and intelligent. At this juncture though, a fierier and more combative captain like Smith could be godsend to re-instil the waning toughness, to bring back their mongrel mojo, to play hard cricket that the fabled Australian teams in the past would.
The so-far one-sided series too would rely on Smith-inspired Australia to make the series spicier, thrilling and competitive. Smith assuming captaincy might have been purely circumstantial, but it was perhaps the balm Australia needed to soothe their wounds. Perhaps, his captaincy career would never turn full circle, but he has a shot at personal redemption. If he indeed salvages something from the series, Smith the captain would be forgiven, and the bitter memories of March 2018 could wane in the glow of March 2023.