We should worry less about Steve Smith's eccentricities and more about the tsunami of criticism which followed

SIMON HUGHES: Much of what Smith does is inexplicable, or incomprehensible. His batting is surreal. He is touched by genius. Geniuses often do strange things. At times they are oblivious to the world around them

Tim Paine apologises for Ravichandran Ashwin comments during SCG draw

When I watch Steve Smith bat I think of Jonathan Trott: totally dedicated to his art, completely immersed in the business of scoring runs, addicted to routine, at times obsessive.

In the dressing room Trott was so fussy about his kit he used to prop up his bats with his favourite in the middle of the line as it was always the one on the end that people picked up and fiddled with.

Do you remember how repetitively he used to remark his guard, slowly and methodically redrawing the line with his spikes after every single ball faced and often at the non-striker’s end as well?

Once at Lord’s in a Test against Bangladesh he struck the winning runs and then, as Kevin Pietersen jogged up the wicket for a congratulatory hug, he watched slightly incredulously as Trott dutifully remarked his guard again.

“Trotty, the match is over!” we shouted from the commentary box. It was almost irrelevant to him. Having made 226 in the first innings and 36 not out in the second he just wanted to carry on batting oblivious to his surroundings or the match situation.

Smith is the same. He’s a bit eccentric. He doesn’t like ‘seeing his shoelaces’ when he’s batting so tapes them round the back of his ankles. He doesn’t like anything distracting him at the crease. He loves batting. He craves it. He can’t think about anything else.

^{Smith has come in for criticism since footage emerged of him scratching a guard while fielding in the final innings of the third Test at the SCG}

Even when he is not at the wicket he will always be batting somewhere, if not in the nets – or recently facing his wife’s throwdowns - then in his head. He goes to bed thinking about batting – “I lie awake imagining its Broady or whoever coming into bowl with three slips and a gully, cover, mid-off, thinking about where I am going to score, which is not ideal when I am supposed to be sleeping,” he told me in an interview recently.

He shadow-bats in the hotel room or the dressing room, at second slip, or standing at the crease between overs. He is constantly playing shots with an imaginary bat. He can’t help himself.

That is the only explanation for his behaviour at the crease that were caught on stump camera after a drink’s break in India’s second innings in Sydney.

He stands at the wicket initially as a left hander, imagining he is facing Nathan Lyon (as Rishabh Pant was about to do) then swivels round and remarks his own guard as if he was still batting (not surprising given he spent over nine hours at the crease in the match, scoring 130 and 81).

The psychology of playing cricket in an empty ground

He retreats to his fielding position as Pant arrives at the wicket and routinely checks his guard – on the other side of the stumps from where Smith had been – as all batsman do at the beginning of every session.

Neither player thought anything of it, and I have never heard of anyone scuffing out a batsman’s guard. Yet Smith’s actions subsequently incited international outrage, initiating a tsunami of accusations. “Once a cheat, always a cheat”.

The keyboard warriors had a field day. They became so inflamed about it they even abused me for defending him, and lambasted me for sympathising with him after Sandpapergate (which I didn’t). What Smith was actually doing – confirmed by Tim Paine – was first looking at the pitch from a left-hander’s perspective trying to visualise where Lyon should bowl to Pant, before swivelling round and subconsciously preparing to face Lyon himself.

^{Smith had earlier hit a century in the same game}

There is nothing in the laws of cricket, by the way, that says he cannot do this.

Much of what Smith does is inexplicable, or incomprehensible. His batting is surreal. He is touched by genius. Geniuses often do strange things. At times they are oblivious to the world around them.

His behaviour in Sydney merely reaffirms that.

He was weak in allowing the ball tampering in Cape Town but he learnt a very hard lesson. We should not be worrying about his morality any more. But we should be worrying about the torrent of vitriol unleashed on his inoffensive antics.