It is day three of the Edgbaston Test. England has just lost its best batter and charismatic captain off successive deliveries in the second over of the day, and Mohammed Siraj, relishing the responsibility of being the spearhead in Jasprit Bumrah’s absence, is on a hat-trick. The score reads 84 for five; three of the host’s top-six batters have fallen for a blob, and the deficit is a mammoth 503 runs.
Next delivery, Siraj pitches the ball up just outside the off-stump, hoping to exploit the incoming batter’s tentativeness and perhaps induce the outside edge for the catching cordon behind the wicket to snaffle.
Another scalp would not just give Siraj three in three but also virtually leave England with no route back into the contest.
How does Jamie Smith respond? By taking a decisive forward stride and drilling an authoritative drive past mid-off to get off the mark with a boundary. “What was all the fuss about?” he may have wondered.
It was an astonishing beginning to a truly astonishing innings that underlined why English cricket is bristling with excitement about the 24-year-old wicketkeeper-batter from Surrey. By the time the opening session of the third day came to a close, Smith had cantered to a breathtaking 102 off just 82 deliveries, coming ever so close to breaking a 123-year-old record, belonging to Gilbert Jessop who made a 76-ball ton against Australia at The Oval way back in 1902, for the fastest Test hundred by an Englishman. Smith got to the three-figure milestone off 80 deliveries with characteristic flourish as well, sweeping Ravindra Jadeja through midwicket for four in the penultimate over before lunch.
Smith would go on to finish unbeaten on 184 off 207 balls and surpass Alec Stewart’s 173 versus New Zealand in Auckland in 1997 for the highest score by an England wicketkeeper in Tests. So sublime was his strokeplay and so rapid his rate of scoring that even Harry Brook, a generational talent who is averaging 59.52 after 27 Tests, was made to look a tad pedestrian at the other end whilst rollicking along to 158 off 234 deliveries.
As if this wasn’t proof enough of his sheer class, Smith continued in the same vein in the second dig. Walking in at an almost identical total of 83 for five, he eased his way to a 99-ball 88, comprising nine fours and four sixes, to delay India’s victory celebrations by a couple of hours. It took his tally for the match to 272 runs, whilst England’s entire top six contributed a paltry sum of 310.
He appeared just as assured and unflustered as he had done first time around, never mind that England’s
Bazballers, set a colossal target of 608, were out of their comfort zone and battling for only their second draw in 38 Tests since the onset of this overtly gung-ho approach under skipper Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum.
Between Smith’s efforts across the two innings, his counterpart in the opposition, Rishabh Pant, produced pyrotechnics of his own. With India looking to ram home its dominance in the contest after securing an 180-run first-innings lead, the 27-year-old, with a mind and method that’s unfathomable to the outside world, blazed away to 65 off 58 balls in an innings right out of the Pant playbook. Off his very first ball, he waltzed down the track, but Josh Tongue, cognizant of Pant’s inimitable style and swagger, fired a full toss on his pads and got away with a dot ball. Three balls later, the southpaw would give Tongue the charge again and disdainfully deposit him into the stands over long-off for a maximum.
As injudicious as some of Pant’s audacious shots may appear, there is obviously thought that goes into doing what he does. India batting coach Sitanshu Kotak offered some insight into what the maverick from Delhi is like behind the scenes.
“Rishabh actually talks a lot about what he does, when he does (it), why he does (it),” Kotak told the media at Lord’s on Tuesday. “To me, he’s spoken, but he’s someone who doesn’t like talking too much during his innings because he feels that that changes his mindset, and he takes the wrong decision. That’s only when he’s batting. Apart from that, he talks about other batters also, about himself also, and he does (properly plan) what he wants to do because it’s not so easy to score Test hundreds or not so easy to be successful at this level without having any planning.”
In the opening Test at Headingley, of course, Pant was irrepressible, walloping a century in both innings to become the first Indian batter to achieve the feat in England. After 45 Tests, he averages 44.45 with eight tons to his name – the most by an Indian wicketkeeper. That he is able to play a high-risk game and enjoy these returns at No. 5, as opposed to No. 7 where there is often greater liberty to attack, is all the more extraordinary.
Competition with Saha
It seems like an eternity ago now, but there were polarising views about Pant when he first joined the Test fold in 2018. Despite hitting a century at The Oval in just his third Test versus England, he spent the early phase largely in the shadow of Wriddhiman Saha. That he was a better batter than Saha was beyond contention, but the man from Bengal was as safe as houses with the mitts. He could glide across the turf like a gazelle, and pull off catches out of the top drawer against both pace and spin. Particularly on turning tracks at home, Saha’s superior glovework was preferred to Pant’s batting prowess.
But the tide turned for the latter in Australia in December 2020. With India getting bowled out for 36 in an eight-wicket drubbing in the first Test at Adelaide, where Saha was backed because of the difficulty of keeping to a pink ball moving under lights, the think-tank plumped for Pant in the next game at Melbourne to satisfy the need for greater batting heft. India won the Test comfortably, and then Pant unrolled epochal fourth-innings knocks in Sydney and Brisbane to clinch a second straight series win for India Down Under. There was no looking back.
Smith makes it count
Smith’s rise in the England set-up, meanwhile, came at the start of the 2024 summer. For the first two years of the Bazball era, Stokes and McCullum were content with another Surrey man in Ben Foakes at No. 7. Although he did notch up two centuries in his 25 Tests, Foakes was in the team because of his exceptional ability behind the stumps. He delivered what was asked of him, but given England’s unremitting emphasis on batting deep and aggressively, so much so that pitches in the Old Blighty have been designed to facilitate brisk run-making, the men who matter were understandably on the lookout for a more capable batter in that position. As we have found out since Smith’s debut against West Indies last July, he fits the bill perfectly.
Such has been Smith’s demeanour at the crease in the first two Tests that it only seems to be a matter of time before he is promoted in the batting order. An average of 58.64 in 12 Tests, although a small sample size, is remarkable after all. Particularly with Stokes out of touch at No. 6, there have already been suggestions from a few English pundits in the media that they should swap places. McCullum, it must be said, has ruled it out for the time being even though Smith bats at No. 4 for Surrey in the County championship.
Evolution of the keeper-batter
On the evidence of these performances, both Pant and Smith are well-placed to make a significant impact in the evolution of the wicketkeeper’s role. Until the mid-1990s, most designated glovemen were essentially expected to hold onto their chances in the field and assist the bowlers in taking 20 wickets. If they could chip in with a few runs, it was a welcome bonus.
But that changed to a large extent due to the trailblazing exploits of Adam Gilchrist. He came into an imposing Australian Test outfit in November 1999 following the retirement of Ian Healy, a formidable wicketkeeper, and instantly etched his imprint with his precious ability to plunder quick runs and demoralise attacks. It compelled other teams, routinely at the receiving end of Gilchrist’s destructive brilliance, to start looking in a similar direction as well.
Gilchrist’s 5570 runs in 96 Tests continue to be the most by a wicketkeeper in Test history. While he was the undisputed pioneer, equally instrumental in enhancing the importance of wicketkeepers who bat well were Andy Flower and Kumar Sangakkara. Though not in the same attacking mould as the Aussie, their insatiable hunger for runs and technical compactness meant they batted in the top five for a majority of their Test careers. Flower, rather remarkably, averaged 53.7 from 55 Tests for a middling Zimbabwe unit, stacking up 4404 runs including 12 centuries. When Pant hit twin tons at Headingley, he joined Flower in a select band as the only wicketkeepers to bring up three figures in both innings of a Test.
Sangakkara, too, thrived in both facets in the first eight years of his Test career for Sri Lanka. But eventually, his importance at No. 3 was such that he gave up the wicketkeeping duty to savour even better returns as a specialist batter.
Where Pant and Smith end up in the pantheon of great wicketkeeper-batters will make for a compelling watch over the course of the next decade. For now, just as compelling will be to view who among them hammers more runs in the next three Tests and takes their team over the line in a series that is delicately poised at 1-1.
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