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“When the pressure’s on,” Jamie Smith says intently on an otherwise languid morning at the Oval, “it definitely gives you more of a focus. You can’t get away from the fact that, when the game is on the line, you want to be the one that takes it on and wins it. Look at some of the best players that have played the game – and the impact they’ve had in situations where they’ve been needed the most.
“Look at Stokesy [Ben Stokes, his England captain] and some of the innings he’s played where he’s rescued the side from defeat or led them to victory. They’re the things that get remembered. So it would be nice to be the sort of player that can do similar.”
Smith has played only nine Tests so far, as England’s wicketkeeper-batter who does not even stand behind the stumps for Surrey, but his impact has been so impressive with the bat and reassuring with the gloves that it prompts a simple question: whether the 24-year-old believes he can become that indisputably great player who makes a regular difference.
“Definitely,” Smith says, maintaining eye-contact with quiet authority. “If you don’t have that belief there’s no point putting yourself through some of the stuff you have to as a cricketer. When you have a good day you want it to be a memorable day where you’ve put the side in a position to win. You’ve got to have that optimism that you can be the one that, on a given day, can win the game.”
Smith’s conviction will be tested like never before over the coming seven months. After next week’s four-day Test against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge, England face successive five-match series against India, the world’s best team, and then in the cauldron of the Ashes in Australia.
A year ago he was thought by many to be just another county hopeful. But in early 2023 Smith played a breakthrough innings on a turning wicket in Sri Lanka, when he crafted and then blasted a 71-ball century for England Lions. Rob Key, the managing director of the England cricket team, watched Smith bat that day in Galle and it was not long before Stokes began talking about him.
“It was a huge turning point,” Smith remembers. “I didn’t have a great year for Surrey in 2022. We won the championship but I didn’t play a big role. So to be on that Lions tour and to score a quick hundred, playing the way I wanted, took everything to the next level. Until that point I never had the confidence but that freed me up to really expand my game.”
Smith began his innings in Galle steadily and he told Alex Lees, who was batting with him, that, “‘I don’t feel I can slog-sweep here.’ Alex said: ‘Yes, you can. Go for it.’ I remember doing it the next ball and it went for six.”
That life-changing knock did not come out of nowhere. Just under four years earlier Smith scored 127 for Surrey on his first-class debut against an MCC team led by Stuart Broad – who finally dismissed the 18-year-old after he’d faced 192 balls. It still took a characteristic gamble from Stokes and England’s coach Brendon McCullum to decide last summer that Smith, who bats at four for Surrey, would become their Test wicketkeeper while, at No 7, having the guile to steer the tail.
More controversially, Smith was chosen ahead of Ben Foakes, his Surrey teammate regarded by many as the world’s best wicketkeeper, and the vastly experienced Jonny Bairstow.
On his Test debut, against West Indies at Lord’s last July, Smith kept wicket tidily before scoring a sumptuous 70 which included smashing a massive six out of the ground. He smiles wryly when I ask if they found the ball on the St John’s Wood Road. “No, but I would have liked it if they had done – to have it as a memento.”
He came close to his first Test hundred two weeks later, scoring 95 at Edgbaston, but the milestone fell in his next innings – with a stylish 111 against Sri Lanka at Old Trafford. Smith’s low-key response after reaching his century was as notable. “Obviously, inwardly, I was ecstatic. But the team side always drives me on. How can I put the team in the best position? If I’m thinking of the team then I’m not worried about myself and it frees me up.”
An hour in Smith’s company is revealing as he discusses an ambition that has burned in him for a very long time – since he was a boy who undertook solitary net sessions with a local coach, Matt Homes, at 7am every Saturday for 10 years. His parents were not pushy, and his dad was more smitten by their beloved West Ham than cricket, but Smith thought long and hard about how he could become a distinctive cricketer.
“It was just enjoyable,” he adds. “The variety of stuff that we did was almost five years ahead. From a young age I was practising all kinds of shots, some of which I don’t play now. They need to come back out.”
In his last Test, against Pakistan in Rawalpindi in October, Smith came out to bat when England were reeling at 98 for five. His sparkling yet resolute 89 underlined his comfort in the heat and dust of Test cricket.
He showed even more confidence by opting out of England’s end-of-year tour of New Zealand so that he could be with his partner, Kate, as she gave birth to their son, Noah, in December. “Family has always been my No 1 priority so that was a pretty clear and easy decision,” he says. “I’m privileged to play cricket for England but it was nothing compared to the amazing experiences I had during the three weeks they were in New Zealand.”
Even if the Ashes had taken place last year Smith stresses “it would have been the same decision”.
He and Kate have been together for three years but, as Smith explains with a grin, “I wouldn’t say she’s a massive cricket fan. A couple of times I’ve texted her saying I’m out for 20 and she’s said: ‘Oh, you’ve done well!’ I try and explain that I’ve not done well at all.”
Kate might not understand all the cricketing intricacies he faces, especially as a keeper who still plays as an ordinary fielder in county games. This season Smith is in the groove with the bat, scoring 84 and 58 in his last two games for Surrey, but Foakes has kept wicket. Surely it’s difficult to improve as a Test keeper under such circumstances?
“It takes a little more time to get up to speed. Last year it helped that I was keeping in some white-ball games. Even though people say it’s not the same [as Test cricket] it gets you into a rhythm. This season is different but it gives me a great chance to focus on my batting.”
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For Smith “wicketkeeping has always given me opportunities. It’s something I like doing, and having that responsibility, but it’s even more enjoyable when you’re batting.”
His pleasure when reaching for one of his bats is obvious. In another sign of Smith’s growing reputation, he has joined Joe Root and Mark Wood in recently becoming an enthusiastic ambassador for New Balance. This link with the company follows his immediate success in Test cricket, but Smith does not conform to the archetype of the loud and cocky keeper.
“It’s not my personality to be like that,” he says, “so I’m not going to try to change.”
While acknowledging Foakes’s hurt after losing his England place, Smith says there has “not been any awkwardness at all between us. We all know how good a keeper and player he is and he’s not had the England experiences that he’s probably deserved. But this year he’s played some fantastic knocks and he looks to be freed of that burden. He’s a fantastic person, and fantastic trainer, who goes always about his business in a very professional manner. He’s the best [keeper] in the world for a reason.”
Smith namechecks the brilliant South African AB de Villiers as the wicketkeeper-batter he once looked up to most. It’s also striking that Smith revered Kevin Pietersen when he was growing up. “It was his natural flair and the way he played the game,” Smith says of Pietersen. “It was so exciting to watch and playing international cricket myself now, and understanding how hard it is, makes me see how special it was for him to play that way and almost take the mickey out of people at times. That skill level is remarkable.”
Despite his own audacity and belief, Smith is the opposite to Pietersen in some regards. He is a deep thinker and committed team player. But Pietersen, and England’s 2005 Ashes-winning squad, fired Smith’s imagination. He was too young to have understood that momentous summer at the time but watching the series boxset over the subsequent years fuelled him.
Smith also loved the boxset of England’s 3-1 Ashes win in Australia in 2010-11: “I enjoyed putting both [boxsets] on and rewatching them, knowing every word of the commentary and knowing these are recent pillars in English cricket. They show what can be done and to do something similar, and win an away Ashes, would be every England cricketer’s dream. You look at recent results and see how difficult it is out there – it’s almost Test cricket on fast forward with the media and the Australian public. So it would be fantastic to be involved.”
But first come Zimbabwe and India, the latter of which Smith describes as being “the cricket nation. It would be really nice to have success against the top side.”
The Ashes will still dominate England cricket this year. Mark Stoneman, his mentor and former Surrey teammate, has explained what it was like to play five Tests in Australia in 2017-18 when England were crushed 4-0. “It was just relentless,” Smith says, “and Australia were the best side in the world at the time. But he still enjoyed the experience – and to play in an Ashes would be something I’d never forget even if there were some difficult moments.”
They still speak often, even though Stoneman now plays for Hampshire, and Smith says: “I’ll get out and he’ll be sending me a clip [of the dismissal] and talking about technique or something. To have someone take that interest in your game is really helpful.”
Stoneman is a down-to-earth Geordie and he has always liked Smith because, despite his shimmering talent, he lacks “the Surrey strut”. Smith smiles shyly. “It’s always been my personality and belief that you don’t get anywhere without hard work. You’ve got to work hard at it but enjoy doing it while you have the opportunity.”
It also helps that Smith has the ability and the nerve to meet the demands of such a thrilling but challenging year for English cricket. Smith’s self-belief will be exposed to a searing examination but he sounds determined to remain “relaxed, without thinking too far ahead. I want to go out there and play what’s in front of me without thinking too much. I play at my best when I’m very clear and free-flowing.”
