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Jofra Archer's nasty bouncer to Steve Smith in Ashes 2019 brought cricket fraternity and millions of fans watching around the world to an absolute standstill. While Archer could not dismiss an in-form Smith, his bouncer had him concussed. Smith was on the ground for a while before he walked off the field. Ahead of the Lord's Test, Smith recalled the blow to the head and compared it with a hangover after a dozen of beers.
“I caught one on the arm earlier, got away with a few pull shots that are top edges and a couple in the gaps, “Smith said on Legend of the Ashes podcast.
“And then I copped one in the back of the head, which hurt a fair bit. At that stage, I didn’t realise I was getting concussed."
“It wasn't until I came back out. Half-an-hour after, when the adrenalin sort of went out of my system and I started to feel quite groggy, probably like I'd had a dozen beers to be honest.”
Smith said that the conditions were not ideal for him as he wasn't seeing the ball properly on a quite dark and gloomy day at the 'Home of Cricket'.
"I wasn't seeing the ball properly on an overcast day at Lord's."
"It was quite a dark, gloomy day," he remembered.
"The clouds were rolling in and out. Lord's itself can be a little difficult when they are bowling from the members' end with the members sitting there and the sightscreen not as big as at other grounds."
"There were a few distractions there, and it was just a day (when) I wasn't quite seeing the ball as well as I would have liked from that end," said the 34-year-old.
Smith was batting on 80 when he had to leave the field. Later, he came back to bat and was dismissed for 92. He did not come out to bat in the second innings as Marnus Labuschagne became his concussion substitute. Labuschagne went on to become the most famous concussion substitute as he has become Australia’s no.3 in Test format. Despite not being able to recover for the next Test, Smith scored 774 runs from seven innings at an average of 110.54 including three centuries and three half-centuries.
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