The worrying pattern confronting Steve Smith and Australia

Cape Town: Australia’s coach Andrew McDonald presaged this match by speaking about how Steve Smith’s remarkable Test career would deserve prolonged celebration whenever he retired.

But there was no sense of celebration among Pat Cummins’ team about how abruptly Smith withdrew himself from the team for its return to Newlands for the first time since the 2018 ball tampering scandal. The episode will hasten discussions about how much longer the 37-year-old has left in the baggy green cap.

Mitchell Starc stuck pointedly to matter-of-fact words about Smith’s neck niggle after the game, while a selection of furrowed brows and raised eyebrows from others made it clear that the series of events this week and on match morning had not gone down particularly well.

“Didn’t know anything about it until well, I sort of knew something was going on yesterday when I was trying to get my laundry at the hotel and I couldn’t get in the room,” Starc said. “But I didn’t know he wasn’t playing until I went out to warm up today.”

“He’s obviously been battling that neck since last week. I think I don’t actually know what happened with that, and I haven’t asked. He seems upbeat enough, but I don’t know what treatment or what he’s had done with it so far.”

All week, Australia’s players had been talking up Smith’s state of readiness for one of the biggest Test matches of the past five years. Alex Carey insisted Smith was in fine fettle, about an hour before he batted briefly, then held a long conversation with coach McDonald.

The following morning, McDonald and selection chair George Bailey both made the strong suggestion that Smith would recover quickly and play.

A few hours later, skipper Cummins then lavished Smith with praise for his attitude and involvement in the team on match eve, expressing optimism that he could “compartmentalise” the neck issue and contribute to this game despite not being 100 per cent.

“You don’t play 100-odd Test matches without playing Test matches where you’re not 100 per cent fit, so hopefully that’s the case this week,” Cummins said.

“Even though he’s probably not going to be 100 per cent, hopefully he can compartmentalise that, like he’s done many times before with other things, and can come out and … contribute like he does every week.”

On Tuesday morning, Smith arrived early to the ground with head coach McDonald, selection chair George Bailey and assistant Michael Di Venuto, alongside team doctor Leigh Golding.

He walked to the Newlands nets with a heat patch on the left side of his neck, the trouble area that has affection since the first innings of the Gqeberha Test, and faced a few deliveries from Di Venuto before walking out of the net, speaking with McDonald and Golding and ruling himself out of the game.

This all happened in a fairly orderly manner, but what happened next gave an indication of its effects: Bailey ran from the nets across the ground to meet reserve batsman Josh Inglis as quickly as possible, to tell him he would be playing instead of Smith.

The sense of flurry was maintained as Smith stood near the middle in his tracksuit, hugging a team staffer and telling sympathetic broadcaster Mark Howard that he had pulled out of his own volition.

Smith has missed numerous games since his 2019 hit on the neck by Jofra Archer at Lord’s, whether with delayed concussion effects or also vertigo symptoms, most recently during the Adelaide Ashes Test last summer that gave Usman Khawaja a reprieve before his retirement.

Cricket teams are generally accepting of injuries and illness on a one-off or non-sequential basis. But if patterns develop, even the best operators start to be questioned in terms of team equilibrium and opportunities for others.

As one former Australian player once said of another cricketer of recent vintage, the player’s “biggest downfall” was that they had to get “pushed onto the ground to play”, and teammates and selectors “just got sick of it in the end”.

Smith came to South Africa wanting to make an impact, but he was also clearly concerned about unwanted triggers from the past. His media engagement has been restricted to one interview with Howard in Gqeberha, while fellow vice-captain Travis Head has steadily taken on greater levels of responsibility.

There is no suggestion that the current Australian setup want to push Smith out the door. Quite the contrary in fact.

“It’ll be a big loss, no doubt, when he goes to fill the space of runs there, and it’s probably going to be more of a collective, isn’t it, to bridge the gap between, you know, a player that’s averaged 55 and whoever comes in and not putting the expectations on that player that replaces him at four to be able to do that?” McDonald had said.

“But I think it’s going to be an ongoing conversation. The longer he plays for us at this level, I think the better we will be. But if the day comes where he does, you know, decide to retire, then we’ll respect that, celebrate it. We’ll celebrate it, and hopefully it can be seen as a celebration rather than shifting to what’s next.”

Yet for all that strong sentiment, even Smith’s biggest backers ended this day with questions about his overall health, happiness and the sustainability of an approach that, this week at least, looked like it required 100 per cent comfort in order to perform.

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