It seemed fitting that even Steve Smith’s celebration of another brilliant, gripping sui generis hundred should become a little bit clipped and fraught and fussicky. The hundred had arrived in the right way too, with one of the thrillingly unbound, but still perfectly balanced cover drives that had decorated his innings.
Smith’s cover drive is a remarkable thing. It shouldn’t really be possible. He is already opening his body up the other way as the ball is delivered, closing his left shoulder, gripping the bat hard with his bottom hand, shaping for the default leg-side nurdle.
