Athletes can be a superstitious lot. But Australian star Steve Smith has one strange superstition: he doesn’t sleep until he has batted in the first innings during a Test match.
Smith recently opened up on this superstition in an episode of The Switch with former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen.
“I’d probably struggle (to sleep) until I’ve batted in the first innings and then I’m pretty chilled. Even if I go out and face like five balls in the first innings and it’s the end of the night or something like that, I’d be fine. But until I’ve actually gone out and played that first innings, I don’t know. I just, I’ve always struggled,” Smith told Pietersen.
To this, Pietersen asked if it was a case of pre-match nerves. He added that he had heard so many anecdotes of how Smith would be in his room with his bat just shadow batting.
“No, it’s excitement. I’ve kind of always used that time to visualize… yeah, I do some shadow batting. Some, not as much as I used to, but most of my visualization happens when I should be sleeping. So, you know, it’s not probably something you’d say is normal or something you’d tell people to do. But that’s where that’s where I do my visualization and once I get out there and start playing, then I’m good and I’ll sleep after that,” Smith said.
Smith then continued: “I’m not too superstitious, you know? I tie my shoelaces to my socks. That’s about, you know, the extent of it.”
At this point, Pietersen said that he had heard another story about how once Brad Haddin was throwing balls to him before a day’s play and Smith had scored a century.
“Then he had to keep throwing balls to you every morning. You would search for him every morning. But he did say that if you scored a hundred after hundred after hundred, he’s happy to keep bowling to you.”
At this, Smith pointed out: “It was against India. Start of the summer. I hit four hundreds in four Test matches. So I was locked away and he had to keep throwing to me.”
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