Posted by Steve Smith’s pad-tapping, box-adjusting pre-delivery fidget routine is really quite something. And now, finally, we know why he does it.
“I think it’s left pad, right pad, box, one tap in the middle, two behind my foot, look up, two behind my foot, look up, one… good to go.”
That’s what Smith says himself – but he’s kind of simplifying when he says that.
The “box” bit is actually a triple that seems to break down as, “left of box, right of box, hoick up box.”
It’s all very elaborate and quite a lot to cram in before every single ball. So why does he do it? Clearly he’s feeling around for something. But what?
“The past few days, I have found something,” Smith revealed earlier this week. “I have found my hands – which I am extremely excited about.”
So that’s it. Smith, it seems, is prone to losing track of the whereabouts of two of his key batting appendages.
On this occasion it had been quite a protracted search for them.
“It’s taken me about three-and-a-half or four months to do it. I had a big smile on my face after training the other day. I walked past [assistant coach] Andrew McDonald and said, ‘I’ve found them again’.”
We would recommend that Smith store his hands in “a safe place” from now, if it weren’t for the fact that we routinely lose every single thing we ever deem worthy of such careful storage.
Do they need to be stored at -70 degrees centigrade? Do they have tell-tale spikes on the outside?
I’ve asked Daisy her opinion on this. She merely said, “most men seem to spend an inordinate amount of time fiddling around down there”, before changing the subject back to her preferred masculine hate figures of the moment: Trump, Boris, Matt & Priti.
“. . . and quite a lot to cram in . . . ” Either KC is making wild assumptions or there’s something he’s not telling us.
He always boasts about how many gloves he carries around with him everywhere, maybe he loses his hands in the midst pile of gloves. Another point, if you watch him he always is touching everywhere with his right hand and his left hand is continuously holding his bat. So shouldn’t he have a problem of losing just his right hand. Or is is a matter that one hand gets lost amongst his many bats and the other amongst his gloves, and for the first time in quite a while he has found both hands rather than just one.
Maybe it’s his left hand he’s searching for.
Another point, a lot of coaches will say that when batting focus on the ball and nothing else. Seeing as Smith is a very good batsman how does he cope with batting and fiddling with protective gear at the same time.
His hands appear to have their consciousness, so presumably they’re acting independently of Smith, who remains focused on the ball.
Obviously he is trying to think outside the box.
Is he not just recovering from the ‘Netflix and chill’ that he apparently lists among his hobbies?
If you’re reading this Steve, I put up a small hook on a shelf in the kitchen where I always put my keys after I kept losing track of them. It took a while but now I habitually put them there when I get in. It has really reduced the number of times I mislay my keys. I have a similar system for my wallet and glasses as well.
Maybe a small hook in the kitchen would not be the best option for hands, but the principle might be useful, Steve.
We’re talking “spectacles testicles wallet and watch” here, aren’t we, Stuart?
Except you go for keys rather than watch. Times change.
That’s extremely helpful.
Just trying to help Steve. He seems to get very upset when things go wrong.