Steve Smith - The Journey: My Story, From Backyard Cricket to Australian Captain

Brian Murgatroyd has worked as a journalist, broadcaster and sports administrator for more than 25 years, in that time attending more than 170 Test matches all over the world. He was the England cricket teams first full-time, travelling media manager in the late 1990s and subsequently had three separate spells in the same role with Cricket Australia. He has filed copy for two of the worlds leading news agencies, Reuters and Agence France Presse, and was the International Cricket Councils head of media and communications for almost four years. Brian lives in Dubai with his wife and young daughter and this book is the sixth he has contributed to.

First published in 2017

Copyright Steve Smith 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

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If you want an example of something from my past that explains how I developed into the cricketer I am today, then a good place to start is not a cricket oval but a tennis court. I was never as good at tennis as I was at cricket but it was still a sport I took seriously and I played it quite a lot when I was younger, especially during winter when it filled the void left by an absence of cricket matches every weekend. There were courts at Menai High School, just up the road from the family home in Alfords Point, about 30 kilometres from the centre of Sydney, and I enjoyed playing tennis there with my friends and my dad.

But on one occasion, when I was 14 and taking part in a tournament in nearby Bangor, there wasnt an awful lot of enjoyment to be had, at least for me, as I was getting beaten and beaten badly.

I was up against a boy four years older, a man really, and while I was relatively slight at that stage of my development he loomed large as someone much bigger, stronger and faster than me.

Despite the age and size difference, my stubborn and competitive outlook ruled my actions and I tried to match him shot for shot, but his power was winning the day and he was blowing me off the court.

I was 40 down and heading for a thumping, and although I was relatively calmsomething that wasnt always the case when I playedI was also frustrated by my inability to make any impression on the match. I looked up at Dad, watching on from the sidelines.

When I caught his eye, I was looking for inspiration in an apparently hopeless situation. Dad didnt say anything; instead he made a gesture with his hand, pointing to his temple. Adapt! was his message.

Dads always been a great advocate of thinking through problems in order to try and solve them. Hes a very intelligent man and when he bowled to me during our endless hours of practice at nearby Casuarina Oval, he was constantly challenging me to come up with ways of doing things better. His message was always the same: if something wasnt working then try something different because theres more than one way to skin a cat.

He was right too. Muscle wasnt going to win me a game, let alone the match, so I had to approach things in a different way. And rather than looking to blast my more powerful opponent off the court, maybe it was time to try and get him moving.

So instead of looking for power down the middle of the court, I changed my game. I mixed up the pace on my shots, hit some balls with slice and some with top-spin, and I looked to use the angles around the court so that suddenly he was scampering about beyond the baseline.

The new tactics worked too and I won the match 64. Dad was happy and so was I and it taught me a valuable lesson that Ive carried with me ever since. Lifeand for me a large part of that is being a professional sportsmanis all about thinking on your feet, and seeing challenges as opportunities rather than roadblocks.

In other words, it is all about being able to adapt. That word sums up what I did that day in Bangor all those years ago and it sums up my life in cricket.

This is my story.

I think the first time Stevens mother Gillian and I realised our son might be capable of doing something special on the cricket field was in his second year at under-10A level.

That summer he scored almost 500 runs and proved a prolific wicket-taker for Illawong, form that won him a whole host of awards including the cricketer of the year prize for his age group at Illawong and the under-10 player of the year for the Sutherland Shire Junior Cricket Association.

There were two innings he played that season that stood out and highlighted that he was a real talent. The first was for Illawong against Engadine when we were chasing 160 to win against a side full of good bowlers. In the end Steven scored a hundred to guide us to victory, an innings that made up the lions share of our total and which was head and shoulders above what all the other batsmen were able to produce. The innings sticks in my mind because he maintained control of the chase throughout, despite the loss of wickets around him. He also kept scoring and showed a lot of patience. He displayed a level of cricketing maturity way beyond his age.

The other innings was in a representative match for Sutherland against Blacktown. It was a 50-over-a-side match at Blacktown in stifling 40-degree heat. Wed bowled first and Blacktown had scored around 180 with Steven fielding for the whole innings and bowling ten overs. Steven then opened the batting and with seven overs to go we still needed around 40 and had plenty of wickets in hand.

It was at this time he was struck on the body by a delivery and went down in pain. I was called on to assess him and could see he was exhausted. I suggested he came off to give himself time to recover but he refused and for the remaining overs he and his partner ground out the runs. There was no scoreboard and so at the end of each over Steven would look over to the area where all the parents, teammates and the scorers were sitting and shout How many? He showed incredible concentration and composure to keep going although he was exhausted. In the end he scored 93 not out, we won with a few balls to spare and when the winning runs were hit he was swamped by excited, shouting teammates and parents. At this point he showed what the victory had cost him and broke into uncontrollable weeping through sheer exhaustion and relief. We carried him into the shade and cooled him down with water and ice and he quickly recovered, and it was during this time as he relaxed that one of the opposition adults came over to congratulate him on his innings. He told Steven hed watched junior cricket for many years, but never seen such a fine innings from one so young. It was quite something to hear and made me realise that Steven possessed a special talent.