It remains a curious position that Jamie Smith occupies within the cricketing landscape, asked to play two entirely different roles for county and country. England’s first-choice gloveman, we still presume, sits comfortably as second-string stopper at Surrey; where the national set-up have liked his ability to go through the gears and bat with the tail, at the Oval this season Smith has been a top-order linchpin at No 3.
But with Ben Foakes nursing a torso injury suffered, farcically, after being tossed the ball late in a drab draw with Essex on Monday, here was a rare County Championship outing with the gloves on for his able deputy. Had Foakes sat down with the man who supplanted him in the England Test team, he might have warned Smith to expect a long, slow day in the dirt – across three games and four innings this season, save the period bowling in which he did himself a mischief, Foakes had been out there for 502 overs this season and been able to celebrate just 32 wickets from behind the stumps.
