Nicely summed up as always Cass. I envy you the experience but I know it's better implanted in your brain than mine. Just glad to see a reasonably good team performance at last. Emotionally, I think it's been a hard summer for England as a whole and for some players more so. The Tie was well-earned.
Apropos of nothing other than Stephen Smith and a very few others; I remember a, long-forgotten now, tv popular science programme of the mid-70s which explored why Jimmy Connors was so fluid and accurate in his striking of the ball. It boiled down to a fractional difference between his eye's ability to predict the path of an oncoming ball and the normal eye's response time.
We've seen evidence of this in many sports but I've never heard it discussed as a genetic or developmental thing..Smith seems to have it but he be a savant I suppose..
Thank you Zoon, The result of a lifetimes fascination with this incredible game and the knowledge gained from some of it’s great exponents and then applying same both to playing, administrating and writing upon it. I believe we are very much the mirrors of those who influenced us?
I've loved music all my life and have Classic FM on the background system continuously at home, with Pink Floyd or one of 5,816 other MP3's on when I'm driving! My father, as I've recollected here before was a brilliant natural stringed instrument player, something we didn't have in common! We had a 'Pianola' when I was a child, peddle the bellows along, to a fluted board banging the strings via a syncopatedly perforated paper roll. The keys used to tremble as each note was struck and by closing my eyes and having my fingers rest gently on the keyboard, I could eventually play the tune. I started with 'Three coins in a Fountain' but graduated to Chaminade's 'Autumn' Storm sequence and Sinden's 'Rustle of Spring'. One afternoon some clients of Dad's came to visit at home. Their son who accompanied was a musical savant, aged I suppose about 10 or so. My mother suggested I showed him the Pianola. I peddled very cheerfully through the entirety of Autumn, which was a very long fat roll, I remember! My fascinated listener became highly excited and insisted on having a go. He played through with great zeal. (over tightening the roll in his exuberance). I left him and joined my mother in the conservatory.
A beautiful rendition of this splendid piece rung through the house, slightly slower and meticulous in it's delivery. "Clive's enjoying the Pianola", I heard mum say. But knowing that roll so intimately, I knew somehow it was very different? Returning to the music room we witnessed Clive playing Mum's boudoir grand in the bay window. After she'd played him Bach's suite no1, on her cello, he repeated same, it sounded just like her playing, every individual idiosyncrasy repeated. I do remember him getting very excited and screaming and shouting. I can see mum discreetly closing the window to this day?
The call to our home was about a case for the Trust they'd set up being contested by a family member I recall and eventually Father with Clive's parents joined us from the study. Dad was amazed and accompanied him on the viola. Of course he could play that instantly too. Suddenly he just went over to the sofa and almost collapsed into a deep sleep! They carried him to the car in this comitose state
I never saw him again, but coalesce with your expressed feelings about Steve Smith. At times his strange crease cavorts and facial expressions in particular indicate that perhaps an autistic syndrome may be verging in the background. One shot in his last innings, (to one who played menially by comparison) was extraodinary. From Weekes the ball was just outside off. Smith went over in front of this stump and then 'lapped' the ball through midwicket for four. It was barely short of a length! Normal human beings just can't do that and especially when the balls travelling at 85mph. Wonderfully gifted and marvellous to watch, I'll have with-drawl symptoms now he's gone home!