The Ashes 2025-26: Australia’s Steve Smith falters after the hype of facing England

Steve Smith and England.

The right-hander has doggedly dominated his way through Ashes series for 15 years.

If England are going to win in Australia, Smith must be kept quiet.

Day one was exactly the start Ben Stokes’ side needed – a Smith innings that stands alone for its unease.

There were so many familiar traits but Smith has never batted quite like this.

That the 24 hours before the first Test were entirely focused on Smith was completely of his own making.

Pre-planned and pre-mediated, he stepped into his captain’s news conference – a job he may only fill for a week if Pat Cummins recovers from injury – to give his response to Monty Panesar.

Without being mean to Panesar here, barely anyone had noticed the former England spinner’s comments about how England should make Smith feel «guilty» over his part in the ‘Sandpapergate’ scandal when they were first made a week ago.

Smith, who has been the target of England fans’ taunts since his role in the 2018 ball-tampering incident against South Africa, saw them though.

And on the eve of the Ashes was the moment he snapped as a tit-for-tat spat played out in the media.

A day later, Smith wandered to the middle after just two deliveries, with debutant Jake Weatherald having been floored by Jofra Archer while being dismissed lbw.

He emerged, collar up and with the usual Nadalian twitches in full flow, to the tune of England fans referencing his tears on television when he resigned the captaincy in 2018 (a Panesar update is yet to make its way down under).

Smith produced the most un-Smith of innings. There were 12 plays and misses in 49 balls, including three wild swipes.

Two blows to the elbow, another to the hand. A risky single that would have had Marnus Labuschagne run out with a direct hit.

There were the lurches, waves of the gloves and points of the bat – that will never change – but a false shot percentage of 49% was his personal record high.

Smith’s average for that figure in Australia is 10.9%. His previous high anywhere in the world 29%.

The great Australian, who has scored 10,494 Test runs at an average of 55.81 to sit fourth in his nation’s list of top scorers, was uneasy like never before.

England’s previous struggles were summed up by their former bowler Stuart Broad earlier this week when he, as the paceman to have played against Smith the most in Test cricket, said he still did not know the best plan to dismiss him.

On the first day of the 2025-26 contest in Perth, whether planned or otherwise, England bowled a unique spell to Smith.

Partly because of the bounce in the pitch, partly down to England’s selection of quicker bowlers picked to hit the pitch rather than caress it, not one of the 49 deliveries to Smith would have hit his stumps – the first time England have done that in any of Smith’s Ashes innings lasting 20 balls or more, and a drop from their usual figure of 11%.

There was a lurking leg slip – a hangover from the 2019 series when Smith scored 774 runs at an average of 110.57 as England flicked through from Plan A to Plan F with little success – while Jofra Archer welcomed Smith with a bouncer in another throwback to the 2019 summer of Stokes.

But England’s spell targeted what is the weakness of most Test batters – the channel just outside their body.

Smith averaged 54.5 against balls in that area at his peak between 2010-21 but that drops to 22 runs per dismissal this year.

While the conundrum is far from cracked, England can focus on simplicity going forward.

Smith, who still has nine chances to add to his bulging Ashes legacy, should do the same after a day of uncharacteristic talk.

In Perth, he was uneasy, perhaps unnerved in the spotlight.

Most of all it was just very un-Smith.