“Oh my God, Smudge!”
Marnus Labuschagne was speaking for the nation as he leaped across the Durban pitch to celebrate with Steve Smith.
The champion batter – and new world record holder for most catches by a non-wicketkeeper in Tests – had just pulled off one of his most spectacular grabs yet.
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At full stretch, Smith reeled in a one-handed screamer having perfectly anticipated South African wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne’s reverse sweep.
It was the third incredible snaffle from the 37-year old in a matter of hours on Day 3 at Kingsmead.
Earlier, he had helped remove Temba Bavuma in near-identical fashion, though more conventionally in two hands, while also leaping across Matt Renshaw at first slip to snare a set David Bedingham.
BLINDER! Smith reclaims catching record | 01:51
And it adds further gloss to what might be the most packed highlights reel the game has ever seen.
“He makes half chances into genuine chances and often, you know, makes them or executes on them,” former Australian captain and wicketkeeper Alyssa Healy told foxsports.com.au.
“His catching yesterday was experience. That anticipation, but also then to execute it, it’s quite remarkable.
“To get his body into the positions that he was in, to give himself a chance to catch it, it was ridiculous.
“I’m in awe of some of the catches he’s taken.”
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Writing on X, analyst Ben Jones, Head of Insight at cricket data company CricViz, laid bare his brilliant record.
“Smith such a brilliant slipper. 90% of chances taken in his career, record for an outfielder in Tests over the last 25 years. Unreal,” Jones wrote.
Except … there was a twist.
“Graeme, that is. Steve’s down at 77%, well below average.”
Former South African captain Graeme Smith, while always a safe pair of hands in the cordon throughout across 117 Tests, seldom got anyone off the couch with his efforts in the field, as his Australian namesake has done regularly throughout his career.
According to the Aussie Smith’s metrics, his 221 career catches – sending him surging past England captain Joe Root on the all-time catches list – have been pockmarked by 66 drops to reach that 77% figure.
By contrast, the ex-Proteas opener’s 169 catches carried with them only 19 of what the data considers drops – though catching data has only been available since 2006, by which time he was well into his career.
New Zealand great Kane Williamson (89%), Indian and England blasters Virender Sehwag and Kevin Pietersen (87%) and fellow Aussie Michael Hussey (86%) are all well above, too.
More explainable is the presence of India’s Ravindra Jadeja (88%) and South Africa’s AB de Villiers (86%), with both considered among the greatest fielders of all time – and notably, de Villiers’ stats exclude his time as wicketkeeper from 2012-2014.
But Smith has occasionally lapsed at slip: or, as Healy puts it, “He’s often more likely to drop the dolly and catch the absolute screamer”.
Healy heaps praise on Smith’s catching | 05:28
The reveal sparked a mixture of backlash and disbelief – so much so that Jones was compelled to elaborate further.
And in doing so, he confirmed an old adage that there are three types of not telling the truth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
“Smith’s particular brand of genius is so different to other fielders of his generation. He drops lots of chances, but creates them out of nowhere,” he wrote.
“We need a better way to describe, measure, and celebrate the most underappreciated part of our game.”
Writing on his Substack, Jones argued Smith’s remarkable penchant to go for the extraordinary, and drop the occasional high-difficulty catch as a result, blurs his statistics unfairly.
“Catches like Smith’s off Bavuma show the limitations of measuring fielding ability by this metric alone,” he wrote.
“Many – most in fact – slip fielders would have been slower to react to the reverse sweep, to the point they may not have got a hand on the ball, or even made a dive.
“They would not have been penalised as having dropped a catch, because – through their own passivity – a chance never arose.
“Smith should be applauded.”
‘I learn a lot from Steve’ | 01:25
Healy, who snared her fair share of stunners in a glittering 16-year career that featured 299 international matches, couldn’t agree more.
“He’s got the world record with catches at the moment, but his catching percentage is near up near 80%,” she told foxsports.com.au.
“That’s pretty remarkable considering what he can get his hands to. I think that’s the most incredible thing.”
Other sports are rapidly improving their data to determine what have long been unquantifiable metrics: expected goals are now common reference points in football, Australian Rules and many other sports, as an example.
But until cricket comes up with an equivalent, the most glowing Smith endorsement comes not from the data, but from the esteem in which his teammates hold him in.
“I’ve been very fortunate to have him standing at first slip or leg slip for pretty well the majority of my career,” Nathan Lyon, who has seen Smith nab 65 catches off his bowling, the second-most by any non-keeper off a single bowler behind Muttiah Muralitharan and Mahela Jayawardene’s 77, said after play.
“He’s an absolute freak” Nathan Lyon | 07:54
“There’s not many people within that changing room that will be able to pull off what he does … the amount of catches that he does at training is incredible.”
A former rival in ex-South African international Dane Vilas concurred.
“I think he’s got to be (the greatest slip fielder of all time),” Vilas told talkSPORT.
“The way that he moves, the way he anticipates, and the type of catches he takes … some of the spectacular ones.
“Normally, with a good slip fielder, you get a slip fielder who can go one way and catch. The way that he can go left and right – got to be up there.”
A more pithy judgement came from The Grade Cricketer’s Sam Perry.
“I’m seeing a lot of online chatter about his percentage of catches that he’s dropped,” Perry said.
“Steve Smith is just a great slipper. He’s dropped some easy ones – don’t we all? – but f***, he takes some great catches.
“I appreciate the percentages. But how deep do we want to go?”
And while his teammates’ shock and awe was palpable, according to Lyon, one man above all was most dazzled by the stunning efforts.
“There’s probably no one more impressed than Steve,” he joked.