Ashes 2019: Steve Smith brings dreams to life to exorcise demons with genius batting display

A clear blue sky and an open green pasture. The noise of the crowd dulled to a hum, the fielders blur in the distance. And the ball? Simple: the ball goes wherever you want it to go. Front foot, back foot; off-side, leg-side; new ball, old ball; play it early, play it late; it’s all the same to you. There’s no score and no scoreboard, no safety and no danger. Just you, Steve Smith, against the world.

Is this what batting feels like in your dreams? Perhaps during those long dark months, when he was a Test cricketer in his dreams alone, these were the visions that kept him alive. Only now, they were visible to us all: day one of an Ashes series, and here was Smith once more, making the game look as natural as if he had invented it himself.

Dirt was streaked all down his right side, from where he had earlier dived to try and make a run. It was his only blemish. Sixty yards away, his opposite number Joe Root was trying to captain England from long-on: one of nine fielders on the boundary trying, and largely failing, to prevent Smith from doing exactly what he wanted.

A day that began with boos ringing in his ears ended with 144 runs to his name and maybe the greatest triumph of all: the Edgbaston crowd standing in begrudging homage to one of modern cricket’s true geniuses. They called him a cheat. They warned each other, with mocking chuckles, that he was about to cry any minute.

But on reaching his 24th and perhaps his best Test century, Smith did not cry. He simply punched the air and raised his gaze to the heavens: a man who had come in search of lost time, and found it in his own white pockets.

On a ground that has seen some of the sport’s most memorable innings - Lara’s 501, May’s 285, Kasprowicz’s 20 - Smith produced a ton to rival them all. It was at least as good as Virat Kohli’s for India here 364 days ago: coming in similar conditions, combining crisis management, unstinting discipline, fearless aggression, improvisational genius, and just a touch of personal exorcism. But if Kohli had only his own poor record in England to overcome, then Smith - in his first Test since the Cape Town ball-tampering scandal for which he paid with his captaincy, his dignity and a year of his career - had even more.

A boisterous Edgbaston crowd, drunk on World Cup victory and thirsty for Australian tears, had been thrown a couple of early bones. David Warner, gone. Cameron Bancroft, gone. Stuart Broad, who would finish with five wickets, was bowling with pace and verve on a pleasing fullish length. Chris Woakes was making the ball kick and dart. But the third of the infamous Newlands trio would not be shifted as easily.

First, a rebuild: a partnership of 64 with Travis Head. The new ball was seen off, Ben Stokes swatted away, Moeen Ali attacked. Smith himself was reprieved by Hawkeye after playing no shot to Broad. But then Head was out, one of three left-handers to fall to Woakes. Captain Tim Paine played a hideous hook and was caught in the deep. James Pattinson and Pat Cummins quickly followed. Suddenly, Australia were 123-8 and in danger of losing the game within two sessions.

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But one of the things about Smith is the speed with which he warps the game around him, makes it jive to his own quirky time signature. He manipulates the field, muscles bowlers off their preferred line and length. He emboldens the man at the other end, who sees in Smith’s impregnability a licence to go for their shots. Even if that man is Peter Siddle, whose 44 either side of a squally afternoon shower played its own indispensable part in snapping England’s early momentum.

And so, as the day wore on, as the ball began to age, England found themselves engaged in a far less enjoyable tussle. James Anderson had gone off the field with a calf strain after bowling just four overs, and a stretched attack was beginning to fray. From being in rampant control of the game, Root was suddenly playing an entirely different game, one in which all the slips had been taken out and Joe Denly was bowling his village leg-spin. Siddle eventually departed, caught at short-leg off the persistent Moeen. But with Nathan Lyon the last man in, Smith simply took that as his cue to switch into a weirder gear.

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A big ugly six moved him to 99. A classical cover drive took him past three figures. And now, with nine men on the fence, Smith somehow still managed to penetrate them: a whirling hoik to find the boundary, a disdainful lofted straight drive off Broad for four. Perhaps none of this should have been surprising. We always knew Smith was this good, after all. But time and turmoil will play funny tricks on the memory. And so while Smith was away, it’s possible we allowed a scintilla of doubt to creep in: wondered faintly whether, as we watched Smith empty his broken heart in front of the TV cameras, something essential had changed within him.

It’s a notion of which we can now heartily disabuse ourselves. Australia’s total is handy but not decisive, and if the two hassle-free overs negotiated by Rory Burns and Jason Roy are any clue, there are quick runs to be had on this surface. But in order to score them, they will need to wrestle back a narrative that - even at this early juncture - looks like being shaped by one man. England will not win the Ashes back unless they can wake Smith from his dreams.