IND vs AUS: How can Steve Smith find form at Indore to fulfil Brett Lee’s prediction of a hundred?

How can a batting brain so calculative, so smart produce a series of mental errors in this series? He has looked off-colour with his catching as well, making basic errors at slips – be it standing up too early or snapping his palms hard at the ball. But primarily, it’s been his batting that has been a let down. And he knows it, of course.

“I don’t think there’s been too many times I’ve walked off the field and I’ve gone, ‘What the hell am I doing?’” Smith said on Tuesday. “I was pretty angry. There hasn’t been too many times in my career where I’ve actually come off and just been bedazzled by what I’ve done. It wasn’t my finest moment.”

Australia’s Steve Smith addresses a press conference ahead of their third test cricket match against India in Indore, India, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023 (AP Photo/Surjeet Yadav)

Smith normally uses two parts really well than other Australian batsmen: hands and feet. Usually they are in sync but even when the feet betrays him, his hands bail him out. Like in the first innings of the first Test. Even when out of balance, out of position, he can get his hands working overtime, get the bat at an angle to get enough wood to squeeze it between the bat and pad or stumps as the case may be. Initially, he didn’t press too far back or lunge forward. Too risky, without reading the ball. Lbw or bat-pad-catch looms with those approaches. Instead, he just leaned forward a little, without making any big stride, – those wonderful hands again allowed him to get away with it. Combined with the decision to play the ball late.

But that can only come with a trust in defence, which seems to have fled him in the second Test.

Still, this is Smith we are talking about, and it won’t be a surprise if he bounces back at Indore. Else, undoubtedly, Australia will sink.

During India’s last tour of Australia, Ashwin had out-thought him, targeting his hands. Smith found the ball in the unlikeliest of areas, temptation dangling down leg, or a ball that skids on straight from round the stumps angle.

Ashwin’s takedown of Smith in Australia should rank as one of the great triumphs of a spinner in the modern-day cricket. But one expected Smith would have learnt his lessons from that lived experience and adapt better this time around. But he seems to have be blown away by self-doubts and misreadings as the others. But if Travis Head can show the way with decisive drives off the front foot, Smith certainly can. Unlike Head, Smith has a good natural game against spin.

Australia’s Steve Smith plays a shot during the third day of the second cricket test match between India and Australia in New Delhi, India, Sunday, Feb. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

Somehow,, he needs to find a way to trust his game on the front foot. Ashwin got him here to with a skidding slider from round the stumps for a duck in the first innings of the Delhi Test, that would have enhanced the claustrophobia. He had lunged forward to defend but hadn’t picked or covered the line properly of the delivery that went on with the angle.

You can see how tough it is by some of the comments of former Australian batsmen like Matthew Hayden and Mark Waugh on air. Waugh was a classy batsman of spin and Hayden could thump it as the world knows. Yet, time and again, they would call a ball going off straight as “natural variation”. As if it went there on its own, due to the pitch, due to the accidental way the ball landed on the pitch. Nope, that doesn’t quite cut it as Dinesh Karthik has reminded them often on air. We have heard R Ashwin say it a numerous times in the past as well. Not all such deliveries are ‘natural variation’. It’s deliberately consciously done. The undercutting of the ball, or how Ashwin can almost lock the wrist and just push the ball at that angle.

If such good batsmen of spin are unable to even see the possibility of a ball like that being deliberate, it does say something about the Australians a bit. Perhaps, Smith too is finding it difficult to read that and became a bit wary about trying to get on to the front foot.

But trouble lies in the back foot. He knows that. He has seen Marnus Labuschagne perish, retreating deep into the crease and hoping his hands would save him. They can’t always on such pitches especially with Jadeja and Axar fizzing them.

Both the Indian left-armers are mighty difficult to read from the hands. Even paused-up spin-cameras can leave the watcher with a puzzle and a headache. Smith and Co. reportedly spent a lot of time before the series trying to sort out Axar Patel’s action.

But there is a way ahead for Smith through the same lane that Mark Waugh and Matthew Hayden took. Even if they believe it’s a natural variation – or in other words aren’t picking it from the hands- they had a great way to repel the turning ball. A trust in their defence, in their attack, in their feet, eyes, and hands got them bucketful of runs.

If Smith can reproduce that kind of confidence from his own past, half the job is done, potentially. Perhaps, the maxim ‘fake it till you make it’ is what Smith needs.