1 day ago
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No doubt someone, somewhere, in some fevered corner of the internet will come up with a counter view. If the universe of cricketing hot takes really is infinite, then logically there must be a feed, a page, a platform where a voice is saying, Jamie Smith and The Shot: on second thoughts.
You might think this was a bad shot, perhaps even the Worst Shot. You might think all surviving footage of the shot should be pixelated in the interests of public safety, classified as a hate crime, scrubbed from the internet under the right to forget.
But actually you’re just telling the world that you don’t understand the energy, the mindset, the transcendent game-states, the blocking out of the noise, the saving not just of Test cricket but all life, love, joy … Sorry. But no.
Even trying to type these words is not just nauseating by now, but physically painful, like stabbing yourself in the eyeball with a heated knitting needle made entirely from stupidity, motivational slogans and the toenails of weak men.
It is only right to face this head on. The shot heard around the world. The plink to mid-on off Marnus Labuschagne’s pantomime medium-short. The punchline to an era just before lunch at the Sydney Cricket Ground, a shot that speaks not just to poor execution or the fatigue of touring, but to a failure that spreads back up the arm, into the central cortex and out like a Stranger Things magic energy-wave into the entire superstructure of the Baz-verse and all its methods. Welcome to the anatomy of a brain-fade.
The Shot also stands alone on its own demerits. England were 320-5, a quarter of an hour before lunch, with Smith on 41 and Joe Root on 128. The job had been half-done. Pressure was being Put Back On the Bowlers, this time around by scoring runs and building partnerships.
Australia were drawing a breath, taking overs out of the game before the new ball. Travis Head was rolling out some clubbable off-breaks. At the Paddington End Labuschagne was hurling down his medium-nothings, the bowling equivalent at this level of being mildly bothered on a lap of the park by a particularly fond and brainless King Charles spaniel puppy.
Labuschagne had just bowled a quarter-tracker so short and high it was called wide. At this point people were literally laughing at the Test Match, leaning back in their seats, wondering about lunch. Maybe if you go to the drinks queue now. I’ll have a look at the buffet. The char siu pork smells good. If we meet at the … Oh. What. What did he… Whoah.
The next ball was also short and loopy. But this time Smith decided to go after it, reaching up, losing his balance, and producing a kind of inside-out, double-fisted clay-court baseline forehand. The contact was a dull thunk. The ball flew in a mocking arc to Scott Boland, the only fielder in front of square on either side.
Even as it hung there, horribly, the crowd was already emitting an outraged gurgle, Marnus leaping and waving his hands in disbelief. Here was one of those rare moments where elite sport suddenly falls apart, the lines dissolve and you realise these are just some people doing stuff.
Was The Shot the worst shot ever played? True, in isolation it looked like the kind of thing spurted out by those social media feeds called VillageBantz or CrickTwatFails. But context is also key. And the context is also terrible.
Smith had already got away with clothing a catch to cover off a no-ball, spooning a pull, edging over the slips. At the other end Root was ticking over in neutral like a vintage Aston Martin DB5 on the driveway. The game was literally warning him, whispering into his ear, urging him to just stay with Joe. The tour has been bruising. Life is hard. Let it happen. Don’t overreach.
Didn’t listen. Did overreach. Played the shot. Three overs later it was lunch. Before long the tail was fending off the new ball. Two hours later England had lost 5-62 and were already being sent scattering around the SCG by Head, in full mediaeval axe-warrior mode.
And yes by this point Smith has already been flame-throwered, memed, effigeed, voodoo-dolled. The shot will become a touchstone, Smithing It a synonym for abjectness. Watching all this you searched for a kinder interpretation. Maybe the problem is mixed messaging. Maybe England need more, not less Weak Men. Go full Weak Man. Lean into it. Give us Weakball.
Or perhaps we’re all just too hyped up by this stage, too polarised by brain-rot and Baz inanity. Perhaps the correct take is that this was one bad shot from a guy who made 40-odd in a decent total. Root did his best in the post-play wash-up to make the case, yet another example of his ability to be a good teammate, to read the situation.
But this will not do. The correct response is to be tough on Smith, yes, but also much tougher on the causes of Smith. Don’t long-bow the messenger. Well, actually do. But train your arrows more keenly on the people who gave him the message in the first place. Ideally, before they even get to send the message, which is probably find your neutral energy space, but do it your own way, really it’s up to you, or something equally vapid.
This is above all a structural failure. Sports teams like to talk about having a DNA and a culture. The shot was simply its visible face. What do you get if your messaging is endlessly aggressive, but also oddly vague? What happens when you pare it all back but don’t feed that machine with good things, don’t fill the void with detail, information, prep, instead sending your players out like a bunch of tin men dotted with post-it notes?
There is evidence of how we got here. Last summer Smith batted really well in the fourth innings at Edgbaston against India. With England only looking to save the game he hit three big sixes, then went after another one and skied it.
Afterwards the public take on this was: yes, more, repeat. McCullum talked about impact. Stokes praised his man for “sticking to his guns” and “playing his natural game”, about “wresting back momentum” (while also losing). Fine. A bit weird. A bit one note. But surely the private messaging must be different.
Then at Adelaide the same thing happened. Smith on 60 from 82 balls had just hit Mitchell Starc for back-to-back fours, then tried to hit him into the desert over midwicket, thus ceding England’s last chance to save the game and the series. He can hit that ball for six. But it was a seriously low percentage shot in context. Again Stokes talked afterwards about good options, about playing the way you play.
Even here Root might have walked down and told Smith to rein it in, to be there at lunch, after he’d got away with a couple just before The Shot. This isn’t taking away your magic dust, diluting your Baz-spunk. It’s called listening to advice. Not all noise is bad noise. Successful people learn things.
And this is the real point here. The issue with England’s meek concession of this Ashes series isn’t a lack of talent. It’s a waste of talent. Smith is the right person for this. He still has the highest batting average of any England wicketkeeper ever to play the game, just ahead of Les Ames and Matt Prior. These are good players producing results below their level, and doing it in an oddly performative way, good intentions undermined by sloppiness and poor prep.
Talent is being wasted here, scars inflected carelessly. At the end of which we have a 25-year-old, 18 months into a Test career lived out under the same one-note regime, walking off looking desolate (he knew, he knows) as another innings slipped away from a position of strength.
