Steve Smith makes surprising revelation about Jofra Archer’s nasty knock from Ashes Test at Lords
Steve Smith returns to Lord’s this Wednesday – 4 years after he was struck by Joffrey Archer’s lightning which hit him in the head and left him feeling like he’d had a ‘dozen beers’.
He was 80 that afternoon after surviving all of Archer’s bombs, and ended up flying around when a short-angle missile flew up and hit him behind the helmet so tiringly that he went down.
Before returning to the identical damaging zone, Smith revealed the big impact of the nasty hit.
Steve Smith has revealed how much his nasty 2019 Joffrey Archer hit left him
Knocked down and shaken, Smith is bent over like the first players medics rush to his aid after being struck by Archer’s lightning.
He stated that it made him feel like he’d had “a dozen beers.”
“It was a very difficult period to get through,” Smith advised the Legend of the Ashes podcast.
“Earlier I caught one on the arm, dodged a few pull shots that are topsides and a few in the gaps.
“And then I hit one in the back of the head that hurt quite a bit. I didn’t realize I had a concussion at the time.
“I went out and took all the tests and passed all those tests.
‘Not until I came out again. After half an hour the adrenaline somehow got out of my system and I started to feel quite dizzy, probably like I’d had a dozen beers to be honest.
Archer, who kept firing deadly stones from 154km at the Australian batting, had all the pucks for the Australian, but Smith kept chipping away at him until he failed.
England’s speed demon Geoffrey Archer is preparing for a 154km race against Australian champion Steve Smith in 2019.
Sometime later, at the end of an innings, with a clear mind, the champion batsman found the reason why life at the center that afternoon was both daunting and difficult.
“I couldn’t see the ball well on a cloudy day at Lord’s.
“It was a pretty dark, gloomy day,” he recalled.
“The clouds were rolling in and out. Lord’s itself can be a bit tricky because they bowl from the cast end while the cast is sitting there and the viewing screen isn’t as big as other venues.
“There were some distractions and it was just one day (when) I didn’t see the ball as well as I would have liked from that point on.”
Archer’s lightning strike hits Smith in the helmet, sending him straight into a world of pain and knocking him off his feet in 2019.
Fortunately for Smith and Australia, they didn’t have to face Archer this 12 months after the pace engine was knocked out of the collection with an injury that will no doubt upset many who take pleasure in head-to-head battles.
That afternoon, four years ago, Smith battled bravely through a variety of visual distractions and countless body bumps from the fast bowlers.
He had survived all of this earlier than Archer’s short bolt of lightning had hit him.
He backed away from the damage, but got here again after the late wicket fell. He is now thought to be concussed but took another eight runs and ended the innings with 92.
Smith’s best friend Marnus Labuchen was brought in to take his place in the 2nd innings of this Lord’s Test and he departed as a brilliant batsman with a score of 59. Australia salvaged a dramatic draw in Steve Smith’s absence.
This 12 months, he and the vaunted Aussie batting line-up will go one nil in the second Ashes Test, and Smith may want to get out in the process.
He made just 6 and 16 at Edgebaston as the Aussies fought tooth and nail to win almost to the wire, with just a few overs to spare and just two wickets in the sheds.
