DO YOU WANT JUST RUNS OR SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL?
Is cricket really about more than just the accumulation of runs and wickets?
“I wonder if Bradman was this painful to watch…”
This is the thought that wandered into my mind during the seemingly neurotic opening stages of Steve Smith’s 227-ball unbeaten innings at The Oval, overnight.
Twitching and bobbing and flailing, he seemed pained for his first 100 balls, intently staring at the pitch, the ball, the bowler. He wasn’t just trying to “look closely at the ball”, it was as if he was trying to look through it.
Every forward defence was closed with an aggressive shout of “No Run”. Every leave or play-and-miss proffered an overly confirmational nod and mimicking hand gesture. He was always moving — before, during, and after each and every delivery except for those brief moments of contact. (You know the ones, the Super Slo-Mo “Brought To You Be Hot Spot’s Sun Protection” giving scientific evidence of ball hitting the bat, despite the fact that humans who play cricket have accepted that act via the use of eyes and ears — and hands if you are said batter — for hundreds of years.)
Steven Peter Devereux Smith (with a name like that you have to type it out at least once every article) is widely considered amongst pundits as the “BSB” aka the “Best Since Bradman”, but surely the batter responsible for The Art of Cricket couldn’t have been as ungainly.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one questioning the palatability of the prodigal son’s batting mannerisms with the quaint folk at Guerilla Cricket, also ruminating on the same musings during their companion conversations (and also in previous manifestos.)
From a 2017–18 Ashes Report: Despite fidgety ways that would suggest otherwise, he produced in spades a characteristic that England’s batsmen could rarely locate, let alone master: patience. If comparisons with Don Bradman are wide of the mark for a variety of reasons, he must surely rank at the top of the list of the greatest ever ‘ugly’ batsmen. Of those who might fall into the same category — Graeme Smith, Gary Kirsten, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Kepler Wessels — only Chanderpaul, who finished a 164-match Test career with an average of 51, and perhaps Smith, the former South Africa captain, can lay claim to being his equal. (Nigel Henderson)
Perhaps my aversion to the stuttering Smith was the maestro magic happening at the other end by one Travis Head.
In the era of “Baz-Ball” it’s actually the laconic South Australian who has the best strike rate of any batsman with more than 500 runs in the foreclosing 2021–23 ICC Test Championship window. (The “Bin Lid” has amassed 1,354 runs @ 58.86 AVE, and arguably more importantly, @ 81.91 SR.) The only batter who is in the same swashbuckling orbit is India’s (currently absent) wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant (868 runs @ 43.40 AVE / 80.81 SR).
Unlike Smith’s arrival at the crease, Head’s movements were casual, relaxed, and confident. He was a band’s frontman striding onto the stage, instead of a scientist trepidaciously walking into the lab.
Head’s fifth delivery races to the boundary, an open-faced glide through a vacant backward point region. From here on he swiftly gets into his art. His sixth delivery faced is another open-faced push, this time through cover, “forcing” India to employ a deep cover-point sweeper. Head’s tenth delivery sees him explore the on-side, gently whipping the ball through mid-wicket. His twelfth, sees Head explore an aerial route this time deploying the ball through mid-wicket for another boundary.
The hundred is brought up for Australia. The crowd is roaring. The commentators, betwixt their cliches, are gushing. While watching Travis Head playing with such gay abandon, however, I must admit, I didn’t feel security.
Despite his hundreds of runs in the last two years, Head’s innings always feel like the tempo controls him rather than him the tempo. It doesn’t look like he’s choosing to score this quickly, it seems as if it’s his only option. Perhaps it’s Nesar Hussain’s constant chirps of how much “Head is in a hurry here” but looks as if Head can’t stand still. His actions aren’t quirky or neurotic like Smith’s, but they don’t seem controlled either.
It’s at this point of Test Cricket watching that I reach my first viewer’s dilemma for this ‘winter/summer’. Which of the fans' follies do I choose?
One is an artist’s interpretation of run-scoring entertainment; the other is a robotics engineer’s quality-assured iterative result of a decade’s worth of run-scoring research. I enjoy one more, but I trust the other far more greatly.
Prior to each delivery, S.P.D.S.c415 (aka Steve Smith) numbers off the fielding side’s coordinates. It’s a fail-safe, until the environment is confirmed analysis cannot take place. Once 11 x,y points on The Oval’s Cartesian Plane are confirmed, an equipment check begins. Laces, straps, and pads are checked for both position and alignment. Mobility and sight lines are confirmed. A New Balance blade wafts out towards backward point, wiggling like a wind sock, seemingly searching for hints of swing in the air. Now the pre-delivery checklist. Bowler running in, bob once to confirm target acquired. Bob a second time to lock into the target. Sidestep across to commence deployment. The assets (stumps) are protected, so even if something unexpected happens, it’s mathematically unlikely that an adverse outcome will occur.
It’s long been commented on that Steve Smith forces a “sixth stump” line, and Day 1 of the ICC Test Championship Match was confirmation of that. Stray inside of the illusionary “sixth stump” and he oft capitalised. Stray outside of it, and the result was as docile as the pitch become by the 60th over.
Smith loves to bat time, and it continues to pay dividends. The machine needs data and once it has enough, its algorithm is scarily efficient. And when the time comes to attack, the results are brutal (as witnessed by his takedown of Jadeja in the 69th over) albeit rarely beautiful.
That’s the shot of a batter that trusts his timing. Matthew Hayden
This comment is about the comfort of an artist in a flow state. There is no analysis. There is no care for the environment, the variables, the state of the narrative. The batter’s body becomes a medium for the delivery of runs. It’s elegant. It’s fluid. It’s beautiful.
However, the paradox is that Travis Head does the same thing, delivery after delivery but often gets different results. With his body still, a deftly angled bat is seen firmly pressing, but done to all balls, regardless if they are very full, slightly full, or slightly short.
According to the Cricinfo ball-by-ball transcript, Head’s edge was found 26 times in his 156 delivery (ongoing) knock, or 17% of the time. By comparison, he found the boundary a comparable 15% of the time.
Head’s last dozen deliveries for the day are a fair summation of his innings thus far. It was an (almost) even mix of three boundaries, four edges (or play and misses), and five non-consequential deliveries.
Head seems to be a Test batter born for the age where most of his country-people will be consuming his innings in a 48-minute sampler six hours after the fact, instead of riding the slightly more calamitous wave with him during its creation.
When stumps are called, Head leaves the ground almost gasping for breath. A spent vessel after being used for hours as a muse for runs and entertainment. Smith, contrastingly, removes his helmet and gloves calmly, barely a drop of sweat falling from his brow. He’s powering down for an evening of de-frag, re-calibration, and system updates — readying himself for the required output of runs (and balls faced) tomorrow.
After my (albeit brief) research of “The Don’s” batting artistry, I am left with few words about his style. Nearly all of the plaudits are about the outcomes. 52 Tests, 6,996 runs at the unforgettable average of 99.94.
Perhaps S.P.D.S.c415 is a robotic creation better suited to the past, where one consumed overseas tours of cricket via the statistical annuals of Wisden and not the digestibly packaged highlights of broadcasters and advertisers.
But perhaps, the summation of Day 1 of the ICC Test Championship is best encapsulated by the fact that in 2023, one doesn’t need to choose between art and science, one can enjoy (or at least) recognise both.
Till the next delivery,
Hunter G Meredith.
Songs that inspired today’s piece:
- Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful? — Paloma Faith
- Friend In The Field — Art vs. Science
