Here’s What Common Between Steve Smith and Sachin Tendulkar
Today, let’s speak on Australian batting spearhead Steve Smith. He is currently the captain of the Australia national cricket team across all three formats. He also represents New South Wales Blues, Sydney Sixers and Rising Pune Supergiant. Although he was initially selected for Australia as an all-rounder who could bowl right-arm leg spin, Smith now plays primarily as a batsman. On 20 March 2017 he reached a Test batting rating of 941, the fifth highest of all time.
Starting Career as a Bowler
Steven Smith started his Test career as a legspinner who batted at No.8; by the time he was named Australia’s captain five years later, he was the No.1 Test batsman in the world and no more than an occasional bowler.
One of his earliest achievements was being the leading wicket taker at the 2008 KFC Big Bash tournament. This was despite only playing four out of the five games. He took 4/15 against Queensland and finished with 9 wickets overall. Due to his efforts, he was named the second best player of the tournament.
He was part of the New South Wales team that won the 2009 Twenty20 Champions League. In the final against Trinidad and Tobago at Hyderabad, Smith made 33 with the bat and took two wickets.
By the end of the 2009–10 domestic season Smith had a first-class batting average of over 50 after just 13 first-class matches. While his first-class bowling average in the high forties was not as impressive, his bowling appeared to be steadily improving following some expert mentoring from Shane Warne. In the final match of the season he took 7 for 64 in the second innings against South Australia.
Here is a video showing Steve’s ripping leg break:
Similarity with Sachin Tendulkar
If you don’t know it yet, Steve shares a similar tale with cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar. Like Steve, Sachin too had started his cricketing journey as a fast bowler. However, he got a heck of an advice from former Australian speed demon Dennis Lillee that turned out to be life changing moment for Sachin.
He first met the Australian at the MRF Pace Foundation 30 years ago. There, Tendulkar learnt perhaps the most important lesson of his sporting life: ditch bowling and focus on batting.
On Dennis 68th birthday, Sachin Tendulkar wished him by narrating the incident.
“Dennis, many, many happy returns for the day,” Tendulkar said.“I can never forget the day I met you in Chennai in 1987.“I was there to become a fast bowler but this is something that most of the guys don’t know.“I was always a batter but while catching the train from Mumbai to Chennai my brother told me: ‘It won’t be a bad idea to carry your batting gear’, because after having bowled for a while you made me just standing there doing nothing, so then I padded up and played against all those fast bowlers.“I actually ended up doing that for the rest of the week.“You correctly said: ‘I think this young lad should go out and bat, forget about bowling’.“But that desire continued and instead of bowling in matches I used to fulfil all my desires in the nets bowling from 17 yards, sometimes also pretending to be Dennis Lillee in the nets.”
Happy birthday to one of the best bowlers to have graced the sport, Dennis Lillee! Here’s a small incident from our first meeting. pic.twitter.com/GZgEN7Zei8
The Advent of a New Era
Today’s cricket world has changed to a faster format dealing with the changing times. Players like Steve, Virat Kohli and Joe Root, among others have taken the mantle to carry forward the legacies of former greats like Sachin, Lara and Ponting, to name few.
So, apart from Steve’s present achievements on and around the 22 yards, there’s something more that he shares with Sachin.
