NI doubt anyone in some fevered corner of the internet will come up with a contrary opinion. If the universe of cricketing hotshots is truly infinite, then logically there must be a feed, a page, a platform where a voice says: Jamie Smith and The Shot: When in doubt.
You would think this was a bad shotmaybe even the worst shot. You might think that in the interest of public safety, any surviving footage from the shooting should be pixelated, classified as a hate crime, and scrubbed from the internet under the right to be forgotten.
But you’re just telling the world that you don’t understand the energy, the mentality, the transcendent states of the game, the blocking out of the noise, the salvation of not just Test cricket but of all life, the love, the joy… Sorry. But no.
Even trying to type these words now is not only nauseating, but physically painful, like stabbing yourself in the eyeball with a heated knitting needle made entirely of stupidity, motivational slogans, and the toenails of weak men.
It is only right to face this. The shot was heard around the world. The plink to deep extra cover of Marnus Labuschagne’s pantomime medium-short. The punchline of an era just before lunch, a shot that speaks not only of poor execution or the fatigue of touring, but also of a failure that spreads up the arm, to the central cortex and like a magical wave of energy from Stranger Things to the entire superstructure of the Baz-verse and all its methods. Welcome to the anatomy of a brain fade.
The Shot also stands alone on its own points. England were at 320 for five fifteen minutes before lunch, with Smith on 45 and Joe Root on 128. The job was half done. Pressure was put on the Bowlers again, this time scoring runs and building partnerships. Australia took a deep breath and took overs from the match before the new ball.
Travis Head was rolling out some clubbable off-breaks. At Paddington End, Labuschagne bowled down his medium-nothings, the bowling equivalent at this level of being mildly harassed on a round in the park by a particularly loving and mindless King Charles spaniel puppy.
Labuschagne had just bowled a quarter tracker so short and high it was called wide. At this point people were laughing, leaning back in their chairs and wondering if there would be lunch. Maybe if you go to the drinks queue now. I’ll take a look at the buffet. The Char siu pork smells good. When we meet at the… Oh. What. What did he… Wow.
The next ball was also short and winding. But this time Smith decided to go after it, reached up, lost his balance and produced an inside-out, double fist on the clay court. The contact was a dull thud. The ball flew in a mocking arc to Scott Boland, the only field player standing in front of the square on either side.
Even as it hung there, the crowd, horribly, let out an indignant gurgle, while Labuschagne jumped up and waved his hands in disbelief. This was one of those rare moments when elite sport suddenly falls apart, the boundaries blur and you realize this is just a few people doing things.
Was The Shot the worst shot ever played? It’s true that in itself it looked like something put out by the social media feeds called VillageBantz or CrickTwatFails. But context is also crucial and context is also terrible.
Smith had already gotten away with dressing with a catch to conceal a no-ball, spooning a pull and going over the slips. At the other end, Root tapped into neutral, like a vintage Aston Martin DB5 on the ramp. The game warned Smith, whispering in his ear and urging him to just stick with Joe. The tour left bruises. Life is difficult. Let it happen. Don’t exaggerate.
I didn’t listen. Overreaching. Played the shot. Three overs later it was lunch. It didn’t take long for the tail to deflect the new ball. Two hours later, England had lost five for 61 and were already being sent over the ground by Head, in full medieval axe-warrior mode.
Yes, at this point Smith is flamethrower, memed, effigy, voodoo doll. The shot becomes a touchstone, Forging: a synonym for vileness. Watching all this, you looked for a kinder interpretation. Maybe the problem is mixed messages. Perhaps England needs more weak men, not fewer. Go all out Weak man. Lean into it. Give us Weakball.
Or maybe we’re all just too excited by this phase, too polarized by brain rot and Baz nonsense. Perhaps the correct view is that this was a poor shot from a man who made 40 in a decent total. Root did his best in the post-play wash-up to drive the point home, another example of his ability to be a good teammate, to read the situation.
But this won’t work. The right answer is to be tough on Smith, yes, but also much tougher on Smith’s causes. Do not bow long before the messenger. Well, actually. But focus more sharply on the people who gave him the message in the first place. Ideally, before they can even send the message, that’s probably finding your neutral energy space, but do it your own way, it’s really up to you, or something equally stupid.
This is mainly a structural failure. Sports teams like to talk about having a DNA and a culture. The shot was simply the visible face. What do you get when your messages are endlessly aggressive, but also strangely vague? What happens when you bring everything back, but don’t feed that machine with good stuff, don’t fill the void with details, information, preparation, and instead send your players out like a bunch of tin men littered with Post-it notes?
There’s evidence of how we got here. Last summer, Smith batted very well in the fourth innings against India at Edgbaston. As England tried to save the match, he hit three big sixes, then went after another and skied it.
Public opinion on this was: yes, more, repeat. Brendon McCullum talked about impact. Ben Stokes praised his man for ‘sticking to his guns’ and ‘playing his natural game’, on ‘getting the momentum back’ (while also losing). Fine. A bit weird. Just a note. But the private messages should definitely be different.
The same thing happened in Adelaide. Smith, with 60 off 82 balls, had just hit Mitchell Starc for back-to-back fours and then tried to hit him over midwicket into the desert, ceding England’s last chance to save the game and the series. He can hit that ball for six. But it was a seriously low percentage, shot in context. Once again Stokes spoke about good options, about playing the way you play.
Even here, Root might have walked down and told Smith to keep it down, to be there at lunch, after getting away with a couple just before The Shot. This doesn’t take away your magic dust. That’s called listening to advice. Not all sound is bad sound. Successful people learn things.
This is the real point. England’s meek concession to this Ashes series is not a lack of talent. It’s a waste of talent. Smit is the right person for this. He still has the highest Test average of any English wicketkeeper, just ahead of Les Ames and Matt Prior. These are good players who produce results below their level and do so in a strangely performative way, where good intentions are undermined by sloppiness and poor preparation.
Talent is wasted here, scars are carelessly applied. At the end of it we have a 25-year-old, 18 months into a Test career, living under the same one-note regime, looking forlorn (he knew it, he knows it) as another innings slipped away from a position of strength.
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