Steve Smith didn't mince words and reminded Nathan Lyon to stay in his own lane when the off-spinner offered him a word of advice during an all-crucial lower-order stand in the first Ashes Test in Edgbaston last summer.
The incident is from Smith's comeback to the Test side following ban for involvement in the ball-tampering saga. The right-hand batsman scored two outstanding hundreds, allowing Australia to take a 1-0 lead over England in the five-Test series, which wouldn't have been possible had he not got an able partner in Lyon for an 84-run stand in the first innings.
Lyon's advice was about building it brick by brick, as all tailenders were encouraged to try and do before the encounter by Steve Waugh, the former skipper, himself. But Smith, in that good a form, was just focussed on farming the strike and fetch as many runs as possible.
“The best story about batting with Smudger (Smith) that game was, we just had Steve Waugh, the legend of Australian cricket, talk to us tailenders about working in 10-run partnerships,” Lyon said on the latest episode of The Grade Cricketer podcast. "He really had this dig deep attitude."
"So Smithy’s got his hundred and he did all that stuff so I said to Smithy, ‘We’re up to 230 here. Ten more and we get to 240 and just work in 10s’."
“Smithy looks at me and goes, ‘Gaz, shut the f*** up. Let me bat and I’ll get it up to 300’. So it was just, ‘Yeah, cheers Tugga (Waugh)’," he added.
Now-retired pacer Peter Siddle, who was part of the contest, found the conversation between Smith and Lyon hilarious.
“We had a 20-minute meeting with Tugga about that too, working in our 10-run partnerships," Siddle said. “Smithy didn’t care."
The score might not have eventually reached 300, but the 284 Smith's knock allowed Australia to post was enough for the visitors to stay in the game despite England overhauling that by a 90-run lead. The visitors eventually won the encounter by a massive 251-run margin, with Lyon taking a six-fer in the second innings.
(Inputs from the news.com.au)
