What has gone wrong with Steve Smith the captain?

As Australia prepared to host India for the 2014 Border-Gavaskar trophy, Australian cricket was entering into a new era. Steve Smith, a young Australian cricketer hailing from New South Wales, had slowly started making his name in the cricket world after an impressive performance with the ball in the 2010 edition of the World T20.

He was brought in mainly as a leg-spinner and it was not until the 2010-11 Ashes series, that this young prodigy started making his name more as a batsman than a spinner. On 15th September 2014 he was named as the new vice-captain of the Australian Test team and following an injury to regular skipper Michael Clarke, Steve Smith was appointed as the stand-in skipper with veteran wicketkeeper Brad Haddin as his deputy during the Border-Gavaskar series. It proved to be a turning point for a young and fresh Australian squad which had been fairly inconsistent over the 2014 season.

Smith got his captaincy reign off to a fiery start with impressive performances followed with a victory in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Test match against India. His efforts and consistent performances were rewarded with him being named the No. 1 Test batsman in the world according to the Test Rankings in June 2015.

After the retirement of Michael Clarke following the 3-2 defeat to England in the Ashes, Steve Smith who made an impression with the bat being the leading run scorer in the series was what many considered as a readymade replacement for Clarke and it initially it did prove to be so.

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When the Australian team started performing like the dominant team they were always tagged to be, comparisons were made between the team under Smith and the predominant team which was led by Ricky Ponting. From comparisons between team management styles to their tactics and the coach captain relationship, the Australian team looked to be in safe hands for a minimum of a decade, as Smith was named the captain across all three formats of the game, with fellow teammate, David Warner as his deputy.

The initial stages of his captaincy reaped great rewards, where Stevie was considered to be a captain who is “one for the boys”, the entire team showed great determination, passion, aggression and also results which established them as a force to reckon.

Following great success against the big teams in South Africa and New Zealand, Smith entered the 2016 edition of the Twenty20 World Cup with a lot of expectations from his Australian side, who were considered as one of the favourites to lift the trophy. But after the World T20 exit, the team seems to have descended into a slump, losing the following Test series to a Sri Lanka team in transition with a margin of 3-0 and also the ODI series to South Africa.

Their very recent defeat at the hands of South Africa in the ongoing Test series puts a very dismal record for Steve Smith in the last 12 matches as- L, L,L,L,L,L,W,L,W,L,L,L.

Smith the batsman, has managed to flourish under tough conditions, but Steve Smith the captain seems to be struggling for results. What might have contributed to this dismal record can be down to a number of factors:

• Retirement of several key players such as Shane Watson and Mitchell Johnson

• Underperformance of the reliable players

• Regular struggle against spin bowling

• Inconsistent form of the captain himself

Apart from these key factors, Smith’s captaincy tactics have also come under fire where it has been described more as the conservative approach.

While the records might stand against Stevie for the time being, one must not forget that this is the same captain who set a world record for scoring centuries on his Test and ODI debuts as a captain. It is the difficult and tough phase that tests your characteristics and approach as a leader.

Written by Vivek Sinha