Composed, athletic Smith brings shades of Pietersen

‘You’ve never got enough,” was the oft-repeated mantra of Graham Gooch, and you could sense that something similar was ringing in Jamie Smith’s ears — they are both avid West Ham United fans after all — as Smith left the Emirates Old Trafford field to a standing ovation.
He had just made his maiden Test century, but he was gutted. He courteously acknowledged the crowd’s applause with a few waves of the bat, but his helmet remained on and there was the odd shake of the head.
Smith had made 95 in the third Test against West Indies at Edgbaston, so, having resumed this third day on 72, his first priority was obviously to achieve that coveted century milestone, but, once that had been ticked off, there was undoubtedly the opportunity to kick on and look to what Gooch so famously always called the “daddy” hundreds. That was why Smith was disappointed.
This is, of course, not in any way an attempt to denigrate Smith’s achievement of making a century in only his fourth Test, yielding a Test average of 63.60 now, but it is rather to provide an insight into Smith’s understated but high-achieving mentality. Even when he reached his century with a clip for two to the leg side off Milan Rathnayake, there were no outrageous celebrations, just the quiet satisfaction of a job well done and an embrace with his Surrey team-mate Gus Atkinson.
Smith has previously named Kevin Pietersen as a hero and there are certainly shades of Pietersen in some of his leg-side flicks — there was one here as he advanced down the pitch to Rathnayake to take him to his highest Test score — but thankfully none of his extravagant jigs upon reaching three figures.
Promoted to No 6 here in the absence of Ben Stokes, this was a wonderfully composed innings from the 24-year-old. He just looks so comfortable in his method and his intentions. He makes excellent decisions and executes them with remarkable control. He has a slightly odd initial stance in which he gets closed off with his hands low down by his front pad, but thereafter his movements are smooth and his contact with the ball mostly meaty.
At 6ft 2in he may be England’s tallest ever wicketkeeper, but he is also an obviously strong athlete of the modern era, something he made a conscious decision to work on after being quite slight as a youngster. Just take a look at the size of his arms and you will understand why he is able to hit the ball so far.
Quite frankly, Sri Lanka were a shambles on this third morning, not realising that the right-armer Asitha Fernando had bowled the final over of the previous evening and therefore could not bowl the first one of the morning, but Smith was unperturbed (even if he did raise a smile after nearly losing balance because of the strong wind to the first ball from left-armer Vishwa Fernando). Once Fernando did bowl, after much irritating delay while he went through warm-ups at a different end from which he had been intending to bowl, Smith treated his first ball to a magnificent straight drive that screeched to the long-off boundary for four. Another four from the same bowler, this time to the extra-cover fence, soon afterwards was just as impressive.
Clearly these two Test series against West Indies and Sri Lanka have not been the most demanding in terms of opposition for Smith, but he has made a thrilling start to his Test career, immediately vindicating the selectors’ brave call to jettison Ben Foakes and Jonny Bairstow, and now raising obvious questions as to what the future might hold for him.
How high could he bat in Test cricket? He does bat at four for Surrey, and the evidence of these first four Tests has been that he has a sound defence, as well as all the strokes. Could someone else take the gloves and let him play as a specialist batsman? Well, there has been little wrong with Smith’s keeping, even if he very nearly learnt a harsh lesson when a no-ball was called for his gloves not wholly being behind the stumps after a close appeal against Kamindu Mendis off Shoaib Bashir.
Thankfully England’s review would have been unsuccessful anyway, but it was a reminder that much sterner challenges will await when keeping to spin this winter in Pakistan, particularly as he had made his first error of any note in the first innings of this match when missing a tricky stumping off Shoaib Bashir, not quite staying down long enough as a full ball beat Dhananjaya de Silva, but otherwise he has done the job in the unfussy manner that befits his character. It is reassuring that he has not felt obliged to alter his ways to be one of those constantly chirping keepers.
If I were in the shoes of the England selectors I would just keep Smith as the keeper and at seven or six, depending on Stokes’ fitness, but of more interest is how Smith can be fitted into the white-ball team. He has to play, in my opinion, and I would let him keep too to allow Jos Buttler to concentrate on his captaincy, but whether he can do this in the series against Australia that begins so soon after the third Test against Sri Lanka next month, and which is then followed so swiftly by that Pakistan Test series, is another matter. If he has to wait a little longer, it is not a problem. England already know that they have found a very special cricketer.