• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Australia's new captain

dermo

International Vice-Captain
I'm increasingly coming around to the view that Smith's technical foibles are vastly overplayed. Some of that is covering up due to form but he's definitely found a really successful and surprisingly well-worn method for dealing with his major "weakness" which was the moving ball outside off stump.

It's pretty simple: he's very strong off his pads, so he exploits that by getting right across and covering the stumps and simply leaving the ball. Did it to great effect in England last year and at times look completely at ease when Anderson and Broad were hooping around to all parts, particularly at TB and The Oval. If he got beaten, he played so straight and compact that he didn't nick it, and half the time it hit him on the body anyway so it wouldn't have mattered.

So yeah, reckon we should rethink this "Steve Smith doesn't have a good technique" meme. And hell, even MS Dhoni found a way.
yeah this is pretty spot on, he gets back in his crease when he's leaving and does it late, you won't see him doing big front foot leaves

getting back and across and playing the ball late seems pretty technically sound to me
 

cnerd123

likes this
Re Smith's technique - it's not about prettiness or effectiveness, it's about reliability. Do you think he can bat the same way when burdened with the pressures of captaincy?

I ask because my earlier impressions of him were of a batsman who relied more on touch and being in the right head space to score his runs - he didn't seem very systematic or organised with the way he went about his batting. Have barely seen him bat this year, so was wondering if he has developed a tighter game and is genuinely a more reliable player now, or if he just happens to be in great form and a great state of mind.

If the latter, it is quite possible that the added burden of captaincy could throw him off his game and affect his batting.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
Huh? That seems to me to be very much an English problem.........Australian captains traditionally seem to power on with the bat once they become captain.

That in itself would make a decent discussion, as I've no idea why this should be........
Off the top of my head, guys who batted well as captains:
Gooch and early captaincy Strauss. Atherton maybe, although not against Australia. Gatting carried on his pre-captaincy good form

On the other hand, others didn't:
Hussain, Vaughan and Cook spring immediately to mind. Botham, of course.

Gower was pretty much the same either way. Had a glorious series as skipper in 1985, but at other times he barely made a score.
And nobody thinks that Brearley's batting failures were in any way due to being captain.


Maybe an Australian exception was Mark Taylor, certainly leading up to the 1997 Ashes.
And maybe another would be Kim Hughes.
 
Last edited:

BoyBrumby

Englishman
If the first day of his reign is anything to go by he's going to fail Napoleon's test of being a lucky leader.

Short of someone losing a limb pretty much everything that could go **** up did.
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
Off the top of my head, guys who batted well as captains:
Gooch and early captaincy Strauss. Atherton maybe, although not against Australia. Gatting carried on his pre-captaincy good form

On the other hand, others didn't:
Hussain, Vaughan and Cook spring immediately to mind. Botham, of course.

Gower was pretty much the same either way. Had a glorious series as skipper in 1985, but at other times he barely made a score.
And nobody thinks that Brearley's batting failures were in any way due to being captain.


Maybe an Australian exception was Mark Taylor, certainly leading up to the 1997 Ashes.
And maybe another would be Kim Hughes.
Cook had an immense start though; same bracket as Strauss for mine
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
Cook had an immense start though; same bracket as Strauss for mine
Truth is I'd forgotten he was captain in India. Did he keep it going against NZ? But there's been a long period of mediocrity since then.

I'm trying to recall how Strauss went. Did well in 2006 against Pakistan didn't he?. Perhaps only serviceable with the bat after taking over again in 2009.
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
Truth is I'd forgotten he was captain in India. Did he keep it going against NZ? But there's been a long period of mediocrity since then.

I'm trying to recall how Strauss went. Did well in 2006 against Pakistan didn't he?. Perhaps only serviceable with the bat after taking over again in 2009.
Strauss was immense in the 09 Ashes, probably his last really good series as a batsman but he kind of adapted his game a little when Cook came real good.
 

Top