Those in search of an emblem of England’s Ashes reached a grim consensus: the dismissal of Jamie Smith by Marnus Labuschagne at Sydney.
Enough ink has already been spilled over the timing and execution of Smith’s X-rated slap to deep extra cover on the second morning of the final Test, as England careered towards a 4–1 defeat.
And it has placed a premium on his response this summer, when he will have to work on two areas of his game that have become a concern for the management, and keep at bay the competing claims of Essex’s Jordan Cox and the Rew brothers at Somerset, James and Tom.
‘Towards the back end of the summer and into the winter, I felt technically a little bit out of kilter,’ he said. And the flaws have not gone unnoticed in a player who began his Test career in 2024 with a flurry of clean-hit counter-attacks, including a superb hundred before lunch against India at Edgbaston.
The first flaw was his vulnerability in Australia to the short ball, not least because he seemed unwilling or unable to sway out of the way – as Jacob Bethell did so adeptly during his breakthrough century at the SCG. Harry Brook got into a similar tangle, which meant all the Australians needed to do to him and Smith was bowl bouncers and spread the field.
Second, Smith left a gap between pad and bat as he played forward to the moving ball, and was twice bowled cheaply by Scott Boland – for a duck at Brisbane and for two at Melbourne.
Jamie Smith endured a frustrating Ashes tour which was exemplified by cheap dismissals
It all added up to a frustrating tour on which Smith managed only 211 runs at 23 and a lone half-century – a performance made to look worse by the excellence of his Australian counterpart, Alex Carey.
England’s wicketkeeper had arrived in Perth with a Test average of nearly 49, and left Sydney with the figure closer to 41, and criticism ringing in his ears, not least from Matt Prior, one of his predecessors, who told Daily Mail Sport: ‘The wicketkeeper needs to be the drummer of the band, the heartbeat of the team.’ The low-key Smith, he feared, was neither.
Smith, it’s true, is not obviously demonstrative, though that shouldn’t be confused with a lack of drive. Indeed, his perspective is by some measures ahead of its time: he was only 24 when he opted out of the tour of New Zealand 16 months ago because his partner, Kate, was pregnant with their first child.
When he spent the whole of the second day at Brisbane’s Gabba being jeered every time he touched the ball after dropping Travis Head on three, he soaked up the catcalls and got on with the job. England remain confident he has the inner steel to make a success of the Test role.
His winter, though, was full of pitfalls. Between Brisbane and Sydney came his last-day dismissal at Adelaide, where he was caught at mid-on for 60 trying to hit Mitchell Starc for a fifth successive four – proof, said critics, of Bazball’s recklessness.
Smith then failed to attract any bids at the IPL auction, and was dropped from England’s white-ball set-ups, though it’s hard to think he could have fared any worse than openers Phil Salt and Jos Buttler at the recent T20 World Cup.
Asked at Surrey’s media day earlier this week how he dealt with the scrutiny Down Under, he replied with a smile: ‘I’m always in a good spot.’
In case that sounded like he wasn’t fussed, he added: ‘It was tough. You go to a tour like that with high expectations of trying to do as well as you can, and it didn’t pan out that way.
The young wicketkeeper has not lack of drive but faces an uphill struggle to improve his international reputation
‘Obviously I would have loved to have put some more returns there across five games for us to win a few more, but the reality is that didn’t happen, and I didn’t play as well as I wanted to. But I’m coming into the season fresh, and I love being back at Surrey.’
With Ben Stokes’s batting apparently in decline, Smith’s below-par Ashes has robbed England of the chance to swap their roles at No 6 and 7.
But time off may work wonders. By his own admission, he was ‘knackered physically and mentally’ by the end of last summer’s five-match series against India, when he finished with four single-figure scores and couldn’t take England over the line on the tense final morning at The Oval.
Now, his failure to earn an IPL contract has proved a blessing in disguise. ‘At the time, I would have definitely liked to have gone to the IPL,’ he said. ‘But in hindsight, it’s fantastic to have a block of red-ball here.’
Surrey have six four-day fixtures before the first Test against New Zealand at Lord’s in June, and head coach Gareth Batty is clear about his county’s two-fold role: to win trophies and produce international cricketers.
‘When people have been with England, we should be the comfort blanket,’ he said. ‘When they come back, we go: ‘We’ll have some positive truths, but we’re going to get some work done.’ Because nothing’s going to correct itself feeling sorry for yourself and not doing the work.’
Smith is not even Surrey’s first-choice wicketkeeper: that honour remains in the hands of Ben Foakes, whom Smith replaced in the Test team. But the club are keen to help him hone his glovework before England duty resumes. How he fares will determine whether he gets the chance to help win back the Ashes in 2027.
