This is an important series for Smith, playing in an Ashes for the first time. He was promoted to the England team at the beginning of the 2024 summer at the expense of Ben Foakes and Jonny Bairstow with this tour in mind.<\/p>\n
Smith has made an exceptional start to his Test career. Before the Test at the Gabba he averaged almost 47 with the bat. His glovework has often been tidy.<\/p>\n
But there have also been signs that the 25-year-old has some challenges to overcome.<\/p>\n
Since making a stunning 184 not out and 88 in the second Test against India in July, then following up with 51 in the first innings of the third Test at Lord’s, Smith’s highest score in seven knocks is 33.<\/p>\n
He looked increasingly lethargic as the India series wore on, with both his batting and keeping suffering as a result.<\/p>\n
The Surrey man was in uncharted territory in a series where each of the five Tests went to the final day.<\/p>\n
Because he is not the first-choice keeper for his county – Foakes takes the gloves at The Oval – he was experiencing a workload like never before.<\/p>\n
This Ashes will be similar – another five-Test series. Yes, the first Test in Perth was over in only two days, but there are other challenges to throw to a keeper in Australia.<\/p>\n
The steep bounce and true carry should be an advantage, yet takes some getting used to, and the fearsome heat can be sapping.<\/p>\n
The edge off Head appeared to take Smith by surprise. It was a superb delivery from Archer, nipping away from round the wicket. In a spell where Archer averaged 89.3mph, he got one to leap at Head, and the ball was still on the rise when it got to Smith.<\/p>\n
Moving to his left, Smith got both hands to the ball, only to parry in the direction of the slips, who could not grab the rebound.<\/p>\n
“That was a beauty from Archer, it went quickly to Jamie Smith but you’ve got to take those chances,” said former England captain Michael Vaughan on Test Match Special.<\/p>\n
Former wicketkeeper Matt Prior, part of the England team when they won the Ashes in Australia in 2010-11, said on TNT: “It’s the worst place in the world to be, having just dropped that catch.<\/p>\n
“He didn’t do a lot wrong. He got done for a bit of pace, a bit of extra bounce here at the Gabba. It hit him quite high on the gloves.<\/p>\n
“That’s a chance you’d want to be taking more times than not.”<\/p>\n
According to data analysts Cricviz, Smith’s glovework stands up to other keepers in Test cricket.<\/p>\n
This was only the fourth drop of his career, having held 54 previous chances. Smith has a 93% catching efficiency in Tests and for all wicketkeepers in Tests since the start of 2024, the efficiency is around 89%.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, of the four drops in his Test career, three of them have been against left-handers.<\/p>\n
Smith is also playing in a pink-ball match of any kind for the first time.<\/p>\n
The debate over whether England should have sent more players to a floodlit match between England Lions and a Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra in the weekend before this Test was tempered by the vastly different conditions in Brisbane when compared to the capital.<\/p>\n
While Smith has had five training sessions with the pink ball in the run-up to this Test – two of them under lights – he was out for a second-ball duck in England’s first innings and dropped the first chance that came his way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is an important series for Smith, playing in an Ashes for the first time. He was promoted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-300069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}