India vs Australia 2017: Can Steve Smith, who reinvented himself, now reinvent his team?

Watch What Else Is making News

Out popped a tweet from Jayawardene. “Surprised to see Smith going back home to prepare for SA tour when this one is not finished. Would any other @CricketAus captain done this?” Jayewardene tweeted.

There is also another line of thinking about him. That this perception of him being a soft captain was incorrect and he has always been his own man. There is this story from 2012 during his first year as captain of Sydney Sixers in the Big Bash T20 league in Australia. Stuart Macgill, the 40-year old then, wasn’t too keen to roam as a boundary rider at fine-leg, from one side of the ground to the other, when the young captain Smith gave him a piece of his mind. In the telling of Stuart Clark, former boss of Sixers and former Australia player, it ran thus. “Smithy said, ‘Look mate, I am the captain, you do what I say, now f**k off and get down there’.” Smith would also talk about the incident. “I think MacGill was a little surprised at first, but then he went to the position I had said.”

He has had to show who is boss all over again in the last six months or so, a phase where Smith has turned increasingly grumpier on the field. Once teased for his quiet ways, he was now issuing public putdowns of his teammates.

He has fined Glenn Maxwell for tweeting his angst at batting below captain Matthew Wade in domestic cricket, and wrote how he did it in front of the team in hope that embarrassment would effect a change in behaviour. He has talked about being let down by the bowling of Nathan Lyon. He has pulled up Mitchell Starc for throwing the ball back at a batsman and said he won’t put up with such behaviour. He has also shown his displeasure with Maxwell for signalling for a DRS referral without consulting him.

He has thrown down the ball after taking a catch – interpretations ranged from his displeasure at dropped catches to his dissatisfaction with Lyon’s bowling until then.

It had been festering for a while. The early days of captaincy had earned the fresh-faced Smith a lot of goodwill. His predecessor Michael Clarke wasn’t always a popular captain and Smith was considered the ideal team man to lead. As 2016 rolled on, things began to slowly unravel. He has been rammed in the press for being too conservative in not pressing for victories and settling for draws at times. He was criticised by Mark Taylor for being a defensive captain, Michael Vaughan called his tactics “ridiculous” on the day Pakistan threatened to pull off a heist on the final day in Brisbane, nearly chasing down 490. The whitewash to a not-so-special Sri Lankan team was a “shock to the system” in the words of Steve Waugh who had said the series against South Africa and Pakistan earlier this year would define Smith’s captaincy.

The South African series turned out to be nightmarish, and the make-or-break series against Pakistan was looking to get out of hand for him before things changed with a little bit of help from Pakistan.

It even brought in some praise from critics. Taylor had begun to warm up to Smith during the third Test against Pakistan. “I like just the little subtle changes,” Taylor said. “I love the fact he bowled Nathan Lyon first up this morning. And the other benefit of this is now he’s got Mitchell Starc after Hazlewood, to keep the pressure on.”

It’s one thing to do this against Pakistan who had well and truly begun to implode in that series by the time the last Test was ending. The Indian series can throw up a lot of potential moments when one can turn against oneself as a captain. Self-doubts can creep in when your batsmen begin to wobble against spin, and your spinners fail to show control over their art.

In the past, Smith has shown that he has overcome self-doubts and reverses to emerge as the best batsman in the world. Sometime in 2007, a 17-year-old Smith was playing in a Surrey Second XI team and thinking about playing for England. It seemed a sensible move to the kid – opportunities, English mother, and doubts whether his talent could get him near a baggy green cap.

Tony Ward, a family friend who had earlier taken in the homesick kid into his home in Kent, had to convince him that a future with Australia was bright. In four years, still relatively unknown in Australia, he was in the national team for his legbreaks. It was an uneventful debut, but his captain Ricky Ponting talked up his “terrific enthusiasm” and advertised a lesser-known ability as a “highly talented batter”.

Erratic legbreaks and batting frailties outside off stump soon forced the hands of selectors, but he would return after two years as a batting giant. When Clarke retired, Brad Haddin passed up the opportunity to become captain and pushed for Smith. Runs have continued to flow unimpeded but captaincy has thrown in a few major speedbumps his way. It’s clear that this Indian series would be his greatest test yet as captain.