‘I couldn’t track the ball’: Steve Smith details his health battle to get to Boxing Day

2 months ago 17

Steve Smith will lead Australia proudly onto the MCG on the biggest day of the cricket calendar with the Ashes safely pouched already.

A week ago, it was a very different story. Beset by vestibular problems that grew over four training days in Adelaide, Smith has revealed to this masthead that he ruled himself out of the game and is still looking into the concerns with medical specialists.

After struggling to track the ball at training in Adelaide, Steve Smith was back to work in Melbourne ahead of Friday’s Boxing Day Test.

While previous bouts of vertigo left Smith feeling like the room was spinning, this instance made it particularly difficult for the 36-year-old to track the ball out of the bowler’s hand.

Subsequent testing has gone so far as requiring Smith to wear vestibular goggles to help doctors better identify the source of his problems. While cleared to play this week at the MCG, the episode was unsettling for Smith as he continues to serve a pivotal role as Australia’s most accomplished batman and as Pat Cummins’ loyal lieutenant and stand-in.

“As soon as I started batting in Adelaide I didn’t feel great, wasn’t tracking the ball well, had a bit of head stuff going on,” Smith told this masthead. “Three days out, hit again, played golf that afternoon. I’d already spoken to Ron [coach Andrew McDonald] and was like ‘I don’t feel great’, so he goes ‘just try to get out and do some things and see how it goes’. So I played that afternoon, felt awful that night.

“I felt terrible the next day, didn’t hit or do much. Then I hit the next morning and felt ordinary again. I tried the next day, morning of the game and I just wasn’t ... I couldn’t track the ball. Felt dizzy. When I had my head back and come up [to face], I needed to recalibrate every time my head came up, it was all over the place, and in the end we made the right decision.

Steve Smith watching the ball closely in the nets at the MCG on Christmas Eve.

“I felt awful that day. And playing in that heat wasn’t going to help me – those first two days were bloody hot. So, yeah, I sort of got to the decision, which was the right one, although I think I would’ve liked to bat on that wicket.”

Smith rejected rumour he had been hit in the nets and suffered a concussion, and also denied footage of him throwing his head back in conversation with McDonald on match morning was the moment he was ruled out.

“Throughout that day I was so tired even after concentrating that morning for five minutes in the nets, I was just exhausted,” he said. “So I made the right decision, I think. Gave myself a few days to see some people, saw a couple of vestibular experts and got a bit of advice.

“I’ve had a few different things with my head in the past, head knocks, some vestibular stuff, some vertigo stuff. It was more the vestibular stuff this time.

“It wasn’t the room spinning with the vertigo, which I’ve had previously, but it’s the eye-tracking and not being able to focus on things, particularly moving targets. I felt really slow, really heavy in the head, tightness in the neck and not much fun.

“I’m still talking to people about it. I’ve got some training exercises I need to do, tracking things, wearing goggles with a laser on it, drawing different shapes and things like that. So it’ll be a bit of that, strengthening my neck. Fingers crossed it’s gone and never comes back. That would be nice.”

The irony of the whole saga was that it came a few days after Smith – unusually for him – saw the pink ball with extra clarity at the Gabba in a fiery confrontation with Jofra Archer, who on Wednesday was ruled out for the rest of the series.

Smith said the eye-black he wore for the day-night Test in Brisbane will now become a consistent item in his kit bag.

Steve Smith, wearing eye-black, confronts Jofra Archer in a spirited end to the Brisbane Test earlier this month.

“I felt like I batted pretty well in Brisbane, even with the pink ball, it’s not been one of my strengths in the past.

“The black things I was wearing under my eyes, I’m 100 per cent certain they worked, and I think I’ll be bringing them out in normal night games against the white ball as well.”

An easy team to captain

At the end of the Adelaide Test that sealed the Ashes, captain Pat Cummins embraced many of his teammates, but for Smith there was something more like a bear hug, lifting the stand-in skipper off the ground with deep affection.

Smith leaves the Adelaide Oval moments before the start of the third Test.

Much as he had forecast when Cummins was appointed skipper in 2021, the fast bowling leader has often needed Smith, both as an on-field confidant and an understudy. It’s a dynamic that has sat well with both men, and the division of labour stands in marked contrast to the enormous weight on England’s Ben Stokes.

“The dynamic’s been good, we’ve had a really good team and that makes a huge difference; guys doing their roles and different people standing up,” Smith said.

“It’s quite an easy team to captain if that makes sense.

“I’m really big on angles and making sure they’re right for particular batters when I’m in charge. You might see me move people just a couple of metres because I think angles create different views and feelings in your mind about where you can hit the ball.

“We work together in the middle, I give my opinions at times, sometimes too much, and Pat then takes it on board. But I’m alway there to help in any way I can. Then when I take over, I’ve got people around me.”

How Gabba Test was won

Knowing a fair way out that Cummins would be missing until Adelaide gave Smith some time to think on tactics and tempos. While Perth passed by in a two-day blur, Smith pointed to the pink-ball cat-and-mouse of the Brisbane Test as critical to the series: in particular the decision to pick Michael Neser.

Smith and Australian coach Andrew McDonald in Mebourne preparing for the Boxing Day Test.

“We were umming and ahhing over [Neser] or Nathan [Lyon] playing,” Smith said.

“We thought if we bat well and get the game on our terms, the point of difference with him being able to bowl with the ’keeper up and keep them stuck in their crease was something that work really well.

“The way we batted in that second innings, the lower order was huge in the scheme of the series. One to put more overs into some of their bowlers, but two to get the game on our terms and bowl those overs at night where we got those six wickets, was a huge turning point in that game.”

Staying fresh

Following the Adelaide result, England have been predictably beset by questions over their preparation before the series, their sojourn to Noosa and the nocturnal habits of some players.

Steve Smith in profile.Credit: PA Images via Getty Images

Smith looked at all this with a sympathetic eye, having struggled under a similar glare during his captaincy. His one piece of advice would be to suggest England’s first-time tourists might benefit from more match practice on Australian pitches.

“Five Test matches of intense battles, scrutiny, everything, it’s a lot, and you get to the end of a series ... every Ashes series I’ve got to the end of, I’ve been cooked afterwards,” he said.

“So it is a tricky one. Maybe because a lot of their batters potentially haven’t been here before they need to experience the pace and the bounce of the wickets under pressure.

“It’s such a fine balance. You can get a lot of that stuff in the nets, but it’s the pressure scenario of games that are what you want.

“A lot of our prep in the past has been maybe some of our guys are a bit underdone at the start of the series, but by the end they might be absolutely flying in the fourth and fifth Tests. It’s hard to have both.”

Smith also empathised with Brendon McCullum’s comments about “overpreparing” for matches, having dialled back his own volume of training in his advancing years.

“I think sometimes, particularly when you lose, you almost try too much and too hard and you lose sight of the fact that you want to be mentally fresh when you go in the middle,” Smith said.

“Sometimes you just try too hard to get yourself into that frame of mind, and you’re actually cooked when you go out to the middle to try to perform under pressure.

“I’ve learned that over time. I certainly don’t hit as many balls as I used to. In the past, I’d probably still be in the nets now and going for another hour or so.

“When you’re young, I was all about hitting balls. I didn’t feel mentally drained when I went into a game, whereas now I’m older and played for a long time, I know if I use it all up in the nets, it will hold me back in the middle.”

Stuart’s broadside

Understandably, Smith was less sympathetic about some of the things thrown Australia’s way before the series. As the last remaining player who actually took part in the 2010-11 Ashes, Smith gave short shrift to Stuart Broad’s comments about this being the weakest Australian side since then. After all, as Smith pointed out, this has been the world’s top-rated side over the past four years.

“The statement we’re the worst team since 2010 was a huge one,” Smith said. “The way we’ve played our cricket for the last four years, we’ve made two Test Championship finals and pretty much all the personnel is similar.

“There’s a couple of new ones, with Jake [Weatherald] playing and [Josh] Inglis getting a run, but all these guys have been around for a while and [are] proven performers, so it was a huge call from Broady.

“We certainly see ourselves as a good team, we’re confident in each other and the way we play, and I think the best part of it is everyone stepping up at different times and taking their roles on and helping the team. That’s what you want.”

As for the future, Smith has gradually stepped back from the series-by-series proposition he became in recent years. Enjoying his game and the team, Smith intends to stick around for some time yet – health permitting.

“They just assume I’m playing until I say otherwise,” he said of his planning chats with Cummins and McDonald. “At the moment, I’m enjoying it, it’s fun, so I don’t have any immediate plans to go anywhere.”

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