“Steve had expressed a desire to move back down from that opening position,” Australia’s chair of selectors said on Monday before stating that captain Pat Cummins and coach Andrew McDonald had confirmed that Smith would be moving. Bailey was explicit too in noting that he, despite being the chair, did not decide the order.
Smith’s dalliance with opening in Test cricket has been mostly criticised and there are a lot of people who believe it never should have happened.
And that is a thread worth pulling on. What if it never did happen?
The intriguing part is not the question of who would have opened instead of Smith, which is fascinating but now a moot point. The intriguing part is what would have happened to Smith if the selectors had said no to his request to open the batting.
There will be plenty of people who will say the decision-makers abdicated their responsibilities in that moment and that they should have told Smith it was a bad idea that wasn’t going to be entertained.
That criticism is not unreasonable. Selectors, coaches and captains must make tough decisions and have tough conversations. But every decision has consequences and opportunity cost.
Smith was hinting he was growing weary of the monotony of batting at No. 4. He has conquered every challenge there is in that role. His returns had been diminishing, albeit receding from a ridiculously high watermark. He had averaged 42.22 in the calendar year of 2023, and just 38.80 with a highest score of 50 in six innings against Pakistan prior to his move to the top of the order.
It would take a brave and stubborn leader to hear one of Australia’s greatest ever Test batters request a fresh challenge and then flat out reject it when it was going to solve a selection headache.
How would Smith have felt about that? There will be plenty who will argue that players should play the role they’re given rather than dictate terms. But if anyone has earned the right to at least request such a move, it is Smith.
And given that he has been less than enthusiastic about shifting from No. 3 to No. 4 in Australia’s ODI team in recent times against his preference, the consequences of denying him the chance to open the batting in the Test team are worth considering. It is also worth noting his returns at No. 4 in the ODI side since the shift have been below his career record, coincidentally or otherwise.
Had he remained at No. 4 in the Test side against West Indies and New Zealand there aren’t any guarantees he would have performed any differently than he did opening the batting. Would Australia have won in Brisbane had he been batting at No. 4, given he made an exceptional 91 not out in the chase as an opener? Would he have made a match-winning 174 not out at the Basin Reserve, as Green did? Could he have averaged more than 28.50? Those questions will never be answered. The added strands to Smith staying at No. 4, like how a different opener would have gone and what would have happened to Green, are also unanswerable.
At least with Smith opening, he got a taste of what the alternate universe looks like and can potentially return to No. 4 with renewed vigour against India. Had he remained there, he may instead be feeling like Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day heading into this summer.
That said, was the move as much of a failure as it has been made out to be?
Marnus Labuschagne averaged 16.85 at No. 3 in those same four Tests, with a score of 90, while Kane Williamson averaged 19.25 at No. 3 in New Zealand with a half-century. The conditions were difficult.
Beyond the numbers though, Smith’s initial move to open followed by his request to move back will have unintended consequences despite Green’s injury paving the way for an easy transition.
The first of those falls on the team leadership when or if one of Harris, Bancroft or Renshaw gets the nod. All will feel pressure to prove themselves on Test match return in any case, but a nagging sense that they weren’t the first-choice option could be an added burden.
It will probably end up as a footnote on a storied career, but Smith’s time as a Test opener was a fascinating chapter.
Alex Malcolm is an associate editor at ESPNcricinfo