By Bharath Ramaraj
In the 2023 Surrey versus Middlesex County game played at The Oval, Jamie Smith essayed an on-drive and then a flick shot off Tim Murtagh and Toby Roland-Jones, respectively. Just zoom in on those two strokes with microscopic lenses and you would notice how he picked the length quickly and took the ball from a middle-off line. That short passage of play was enough to gauge Smith’s considerable potential.
In the last 12 months, Smith has showcased his skills on a bigger stage — Test cricket. After playing a mere 12 Tests, he already has 997 runs and averages a whopping 56.84. His last two efforts with the bat — 188 not out and 88 against India — gave England a small window of opportunity of salvaging a draw in the Edgbaston Test.
Although the eventual result went against England, Smith’s mindset deserves fulsome praise. He came out to bat in the first innings with England reeling at 84 for 5, but played with adventure and cracked an unbeaten ton. Even in the second innings, despite wickets falling around him, Smith composed a valiant knock.
Last year, too, Smith validated England management’s decision to select him by playing crucial knocks at The Oval and Rawalpindi, against Sri Lanka and Pakistan, respectively. More importantly, if you scratch the surface, you would notice that those two efforts came in rather tricky conditions.
Despite Smith taking to Test cricket like a duck to water, is there any aspect of his game that he needs to improve? Maybe, just maybe, Smith has a tendency to gift his wicket away when he is dominating the bowlers. Obviously, when a batter is averaging in the mid 50s, he must be doing a lot of things right. However, the way he was dismissed in the final dig of the Edgbaston Test with England looking to save the game would have disappointed the man himself.
He had already pulled a couple of short deliveries off Akash Deep. On expected lines, the very next ball, Akash took pace off and Smith holed out to the man in the deep. Even in the first innings of the first Test, he had fallen into a trap. The counter-argument to it could be his aggressive approach has helped him to score plenty of runs. But batting is also about playing according to the situation of the game.
Ever since Matt Prior walked into retirement life, England haven’t found a wicketkeeper-batter who could consistently average over 40 in the longest format. It is true that Jos Buttler and especially Jonny Bairstow showed sparks of brilliance. Ben Foakes, better known for his glovework, also made some useful contributions with the willow. But it is Foakes’ Surrey teammate, Smith, who looks set to don the white flannels for a long time, alongside breaking records.
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