How Steve Smith was rebuilt with a New York state of mind

New York Times

19 hours ago

A broad grin has replaced the anxiety and tears that accompanied the darkest moment of Steve Smith's career.
One of Australia's greatest ever cricketers looks fit, healthy and, most important of all, happy, rejuvenated partly by time spent in New York City, which has become his second home.
Gone, too, is the quirky cricketing obsessive who would 'shadow bat' — practising shots in front of a mirror without a ball — all night in hotel rooms in preparation for a match the following morning. Now, Smith is just as likely to have a golf club in his hand, having taken up the sport in recent years as a way of escaping cricket's pressure-cooker.
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'I'm pretty relaxed at the moment,' he tells The Athletic via a Zoom call from his New York apartment, as he prepares to fly to the UK to play in the short-form Hundred tournament.
Smith has come a long way since his emotional press conference at Sydney International Airport in March 2018, when he admitted that his failures as captain were responsible for a cheating scandal that had engulfed his Australia team.
His team-mate Cameron Bancroft had been caught by television cameras tampering with the ball during a Test match against South Africa. Bancroft was pictured using sandpaper to rough up one side of the ball in an illegal attempt to induce it to swing. A Cricket Australia investigation found that Smith and David Warner, the team's opening batter, had known about the plan and attempted to cover it up.
The controversy sparked an existential crisis in Australia's national sport, even prompting the country's then-Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to express his outrage. Smith was sacked as captain, and he and Warner were banned for a year. Bancroft received a nine-month suspension.
It was a nadir for Smith who, at the time of 'Sandpaper-gate', was the world's best batter and apparently untouchable as Australia's golden boy. Watching Smith convulsing with sobs in front of the media, the hand of his father, Peter, on his shoulder, many wondered if he would ever be quite the same player again.
It was in New York that Smith sought sanctuary during his exile from the sport. He was already a devotee of the city, having proposed to his then-fiancee Dani Willis at the top of the Rockefeller Center in 2017, but the anonymity of Manhattan life was a balm in a time of crisis.
'We love this city,' Smith says. 'We first came here for a visit in 2016 and we were drawn to it. We come here to chill out and relax. There's so much to see and do. Yes, there are a lot of ex-pats, people from Australia, England and India who want to talk about cricket, but I'm largely anonymous.
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'I've realised as I've got older how important the mental side of cricket is and it takes a lot out of you so you have to try and keep as much in the tank as you can for when the games come around. Hitting loads of balls adds to mental fatigue, so I'm trying to strike a balance between the physical aspect with the mental side of it.
'I still do little bits of shadow batting here and there, but I'm just as likely to get the golf clubs out now. Look, I still train exceptionally hard when I'm around cricket and I still hit a lot of balls in practice but probably less than I did in the past.
'I'm in a place where I'm able to focus for long periods during a five-Test series and that's something I've learnt over a period of time and want to continue.'
It is to the United States that Smith, now 36, looks when he considers the last great ambition of a stellar career that has seen him score more than 10,000 Test runs and recover his standing in Australia.
Smith wants to play in the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, the first time cricket will feature at the Games since 1900, when Great Britain defeated France. Given the LA 2028 format will be Twenty20 — where each team faces 20 six-ball overs — Smith, who will be 39 when that competition rolls around, is determined to play as much short-form cricket as he can, even retiring from 50-over internationals to free up time in his calendar.
'It would be cool and quite something to play in an Olympics,' he says. 'I think the shortest format is the one I haven't quite conquered, so it's one I'd like to improve in. I know the Australian coach Andrew McDonald laughs every time I score a run or two in the Big Bash (Australia's T20 competition) or other short-form tournaments. I send him texts saying, 'Did you see that, mate?' so hopefully I'll be sending plenty of texts and getting my name in that format.'
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There is no question over Smith's place in the Australian Test side and he will again be at the forefront of their attempt to retain the Ashes, the Test series with England that has been the marquee event for both countries since it was first contested in 1882.
He has followed England's recent series against India closely from the States and talks with admiration over the achievement of Joe Root in eclipsing his countryman Ricky Ponting to become the second-highest run-scorer in Test history.
Smith and Root were part of a so-called 'Fab Four', alongside India's Virat Kohli and New Zealand's Kane Williamson, who all emerged at the start of the last decade and established themselves as the sport's pre-eminent batters. Yet, while Root had, for a long time, been ranked well behind the other three, he is now the undisputed world No 1.
'He's batting on another level at the moment,' says Smith. 'Joe looks in such a calm place when he's batting and he's making consistently big scores. For the last few years he's been beautiful to watch. His plans in all sorts of different conditions are spot on and he's scored big runs.'
The one blot on Root's record is his failure to make a Test century in Australia. Might Smith be reminding him of that when the pair meet later in August as opposing Hundred players, Smith for the Cardiff-based Welsh Fire and Root for Trent Rockets?
'I don't think he needs reminding; he probably knows it,' says Smith. 'I do think it will be challenging for the English batters in this Ashes because the wickets we've played on in Australia over the last three or four years have been as challenging as anything I've seen in my career. It will be tricky for them, that's for sure.'
At last Smith has stopped being Mr Nice Guy and is playing one of those psychological shots Australians specialise in when an Ashes series looms.
Well, sort of anyway. Did he not say to the BBC recently that England's 'Bazballers' — the name given to the ultra-attacking philosophy instilled by head coach Brendon McCullum — have changed the way they play and are now trying to win rather than merely entertain?
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'I saw a lot of comments having a go at me for that but it was supposed to be a compliment!' smiles Smith. 'I just think the way they're going about it now is playing the situation better in terms of trying to win a Test.
'I think what England used to say about being the great entertainers was a bit of a cop out but me saying they are trying to win the game, and playing the situations well, is a compliment to them.
'It's going to be a wonderful atmosphere in Australia. The last Ashes at home was during Covid so a lot of English fans couldn't travel and the atmosphere suffered but it won't be like that this time.'
Was that not the Ashes series which Stuart Broad, England's combative fast bowler, said should have been declared void because of Covid restrictions? 'Of course he said that!' says Smith.
Sadly for England, Australia's 4-0 win still stands but, as long as captain Ben Stokes regains fitness, England really do have a decent chance of winning their first series in Australia since Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower's 3-1 triumph in 2010-11.
Does Smith agree? 'I think they've got a pretty good side,' he says diplomatically. 'Root has been outstanding and Harry Brook is a quality player. Ben Duckett has been outstanding, too. We know what Stokes is capable of with both bat and ball and I think their fast bowlers are as good as they've been for a while.
'Conditions-wise it will be challenging for our batters but it will be challenging for them too because a lot of wickets England have been playing on have been pretty flat and ours will be a bit spicy. I can assure them they will be tricky to bat on.'
For now, more Ashes talk can wait. Smith is preparing for his first experience of the Hundred, which began yesterday, having also featured in the US for what has become Welsh Fire's sister team, Washington Freedom, when they won the Major League Cricket title last year.
The former Australian captain was due to play for Welsh Fire when the Hundred was first devised but it was postponed because of Covid. Now, finally, he is ready to make his debut in Welsh Fire's first match against Northern Superchargers on Thursday, even though when we speak he is still wearing a splint on the finger he damaged playing against South Africa in the World Test Championship final in June.
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Will it be different to T20? 'Good question!' says Smith. 'It probably just takes out a few overs of the potential rebuilding that can happen in T20 cricket if you lose a few wickets. It's probably going hammer and tongs the entire time and trying to hit as many boundaries as you can, so I'm looking forward to that.'
One of the fascinating features of the modern world of franchise cricket is seeing players from rival countries in the same team.
In Smith's case that means joining forces with Jonny Bairstow, the England player whose dismissal in the Lord's Test in 2023 — he was run out by wicket-keeper Alex Carey as he walked out of his crease, thinking the ball was dead — was one of the great Ashes rows of recent times.
Do they have to put that behind them?
'From my point of view it's forgotten,' Smith insists. 'I'm looking forward to playing with Jonny. He's been a wonderful player for a long time and gives the white ball in particular a real smack. I've read recently that he's trying to get back in the England white-ball team and he's probably got a bit of a point to prove.'
For all the Ashes rivalry it is good to see Smith put those bad times behind him and clearly relish all he is doing. 'While I'm still enjoying cricket I will stick around to try to help the team win as many matches as I can,' he says. 'I go about my business, work hard and try to do my thing.'
Steve Smith is in a good place and will be doing his thing for some time yet.
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(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; William West / Getty, Stu Forster / Getty, Gary Herschorn / Getty)