This week's Stories After Stumps episode explores a remarkable Ashes comeback in 2019 with the man himself, as well as some key figures around him
Best Since Bradman: The Return of Steven Smith
Steven Smith hadn't played Test cricket in 16 months when he launched into his record-breaking 2019 Ashes campaign – one that teammate Pat Cummins compares to the feats of Bradman in the latest episode of Stories After Stumps.
Through exclusive interviews with Smith, Cummins, former Australia head coach Justin Langer and others, as well as via access to cricket.com.au's vast archive, the documentary-style podcast takes you inside one of the most extraordinary individual series of modern times, which marked Smith's Test comeback after a 12-month ban from international cricket.
"He was very nervous about coming back into the fold," Langer says. "But with his batting, I think there was also a real determination that he wanted to put things right."
With a World Cup campaign under his belt, Smith launched into the Ashes in stunning fashion, upending the first Test at Edgbaston with a match-winning double of 144 and 142, despite torrid abuse from the parochial home crowd. From there he was almost unstoppable, posting scores of 92, 211, 82, 80 and 23 to register 774 runs at 110 for the series.
"It felt like what people talk about Bradman was like back in the day," Cummins says. "Every time we batted, it was like, 'Well, how many between 100 and 200 is he going to get this innings, or is he going to keep batting for longer?
"(England) threw everything at him. You saw the bowlers lose their minds. It was just incredible."
Yet there was also drama throughout. In the podcast episode, Smith and then Australia team physio David Beakley take us out onto the Lord's pitch amid the batter's unforgettable showdown with Jofra Archer, during which he was struck on each arm, and then the neck.
"It looked really bad," Beakley says of the latter blow. "He's down on the ground, luckily still moving. So you're like: Okay, he's conscious here. He hasn't been completely knocked out. But what felt like an eternity was probably five seconds."
Responding in a pre-Lord's press conference to claims from Langer that the Australians would wear him down by making him bowl repeat spells, Archer had simply smiled: "I'm as ready as I've ever been … I think Langer's got another thing coming."
He wasn't wrong. The brutal knock Smith received led to him being the first player subbed out of a Test match with concussion, and triggered for the batter – and others – thoughts about the death of Phillip Hughes.
"I think those memories were still lingering in people's minds, for sure," says then England coach Trevor Bayliss, who checked in on Smith in the medical room at Lord's.
The two New South Welshman had a long, happy history, stretching back to Smith's very early days with the Blues.
"I do remember, Brian Taber was the chairman of selectors, he came and saw me (as NSW coach) and said, 'I was just trying to get onto that young Steve Smith to tell him he's in the Second XI – the little bugger answered the phone and then hung up on me'.
"Anyway, he came back a little while later. He said, 'Steve rang me back later that afternoon, and he said, 'Sorry about that – I was in maths class'."
Years later, they formed a winning combination at NSW and Sydney Sixers before crossing enemy lines, then went through the trauma of Hughes' death with the wider Blues squad.
In 2015, Bayliss jumped ship to England, and had to face Smith – by then the world's best batter – in three straight Ashes series, culminating in 2019.
"It got to the point where you'd go into each of those innings or Test matches with a plan, but he'd problem solve, he'd play a little bit differently, so those plans became ineffective," Bayliss says.
"He moved a long way across to the offside, so one of the plans at the time was to allow our channel needs to be a little bit wider than to a normal batter. But fairly quickly he worked out that's what was happening, so he just stood still, and that line became wide of off-stump, and he just plundered runs through the offside."
Midway through the final Test at The Oval, Smith reached 80 for the 10th consecutive innings in Ashes cricket. By then Australia had retained the Ashes for the first time in the UK in 18 years, and their talismanic batter – who was by his own estimations "pretty cooked" at that point in the series – had been the key figure.
"To have retained the Ashes … I think you could see the joy on everyone's face," he says. "And to know that I'd had a big part in that was definitely satisfying."