A clinic in contemporary batting

How do you bowl to the likes of AB de Villiers and Steve Smith? These modern batting marvels who make the unorthodox look simple, and the innovative look simply routine?

Let’s start with Smith.

The 25-year-old enters the fray in Wednesday’s third Carlton Mid ODI with Australia in a healthy position at 2-189 in the 32nd over.

He puts on 53 with Aaron Finch. Reaches his half-century in 45 balls, with four fours. His next 10 balls read: 1,4,1,4,0,2,4,2,4,1.

At the close of innings, he’s 73 not out off 55 balls.

He’s using the pace of the bowler to guide to third man. He’s punching and stroking through and over cover with high elbows and bent knees. He’s walking across the crease and whipping yorkers outside off-stump to deep backward square leg. He’s clipping balls between his legs to the boundary.

How do you a bowl to a guy like that?

“His strength is the fact that he’s got a lot of energy at the wicket,” said de Villiers on Smith.

“He’s almost a captain’s nightmare when he comes to the crease.

“After 25/30/35 overs, especially on this kind of ground, where you know it’s not the kind of wicket where you’re going to get two/three/four wickets in patches, you have to work really hard for every wicket you get.

“And if you get a busy cricketer at the wicket, it makes it really difficult for you to control the innings, to keep your rhythm and to pace it a little bit better … he makes it difficult for us in doing that.”

Quick Single: Finch, Smith spark Aussie victory

So what do you do? There must be a way, right? No batsman is impenetrable. He must have a weakness.

“The beauty about Steve is that he’s a great player of spin,” said Aaron Finch after play, joining de Villiers in pouring on the accolades.

“So teams are a bit reluctant to bowl that to him at the start of his innings because that does allow him to get away.

“At the same time, he bats in the middle order in Test cricket and can play pace, medium pace, so he’s such a hard player to tie down.

“He’s a similar type player to AB de Villiers, in that you really struggle to bowl dot balls to them in a row.

“And through that middle part of the innings, when you’ve got someone who’s constantly getting off strike or hitting boundaries, it’s such a hard thing to defend against.”

So Finch doesn’t know, either.

But Finch doesn’t have to worry about Smith, though he does, like every cricketer who isn’t South African, have to worry about de Villiers.

The Proteas captain comes in at 3-148 after 28 overs, his side needing to climb a serious mountain in the form of 182 runs from 134 balls.

He’s charging the fast bowlers. He’s changing his stance every ball. He’s going along the ground and in the air. He’s sweeping pace bowlers from outside off-stump over fine-leg for six.

He puts on 76 with Hashim Amla.

Raises his bat for 50 off 32 balls. Hits six fours and a six. Faces 10 dot balls, nine coming in his first 18 deliveries.

Suddenly, South Africa are favourites.

Then he misses a sweep shot off Kane Richardson, and he’s out lbw for 52. A wave of relief washes through the Australian camp; they know full well that if de Villiers is there at the end, they’re on the wrong side of the ledger.

So how do you bowl to a guy like that?

“He’s a world-class player, and in my opinion he’s right up there with the best one or two in the world at the moment,” added Finch, this time on de Villiers.

“He’s done it for such a long time in all formats of the game. He’s probably the most consistent of the guys who are really brutal in the middle order.

“He’s somebody who wins games from nowhere for his team.

“Like I was saying about Smithy, you don’t really have much of a defence against him.

“He plays the short ball well, he moves around and plays all the trick shots as well.

“He’s someone who’s really hard to defend against, so you have to be as attacking as you can against him and you have to try and get him out.

“If you just let him bat and work his way into the innings, you’re doing that at your own peril.

“While he was still in and they had two very experienced players in, it was touch and go there for a while. But luckily we got him.”

Luck? Is that it?

It can’t be? But maybe it is?