When Steven Smith played at the Gabba earlier this year he carried his bat for 91 as Australia were toppled by West Indies. It was two matches into his brief stint as an opener. In his seven innings since, Smith has a top score of 31.
After the first ODI against Pakistan in early November, Smith declared: "I'm ready. I'm ready now. Yeah, I could go out and play a Test match tomorrow, so I feel like I'm in a good place."
So far, though, it hasn't gone his way. Having returned to the middle order against India, Smith has been trapped lbw first ball by Jasprit Bumrah, caught behind off a crackerjack delivery from Mohammed Siraj and tickled down the leg side to Bumrah.
During his career, Smith has hit peaks very rarely seen in the game. However, since the 2019 Ashes, one of the highest peaks, he has averaged 42.01 in Tests compared to 64.56 before that. There have been highs in that period - in 2022 he averaged 58.40 - but overall the trend has been down, while accepting that he had set an incredibly high mark. This year he is averaging 23.20 and is now on his longest stretch of innings without a century.
Does he have one more surge in him as he hunts down the 10,000-run landmark which is currently 296 runs away? Only 14 have ever reached that milestone with Australia contributing the most (three) to the club: Steve Waugh, Allan Border and Ricky Ponting.
"We obviously know how great Steve Smith has been, average 60 in Test cricket and being the standout of this generation," Simon Katich said on ESPN's Around The Wicket. "Think the hard part is, in that second innings in Perth he looked really good in terms of his movements and the way he was hitting the ball. He got a pretty good ball from Siraj when he got out for 17. In Adelaide he was a little bit unlucky getting strangled down the leg side.
"I'm loathed to write him off just yet because we know in these conditions he's very good, but history would suggest at 35 years of age it's tough. You wouldn't think he's going to be back at his best because generally 35-year-olds have been past their peak, so he's got some tough challenges ahead."
His latest dismissal to Bumrah, glancing a catch to Rishabh Pant, brought talk of bad luck. It was probably a little too far down the leg side to truly be a cunning plan, but teams have had considerable success targeting Smith straight in recent years. "You imagine the batsman feels he's unlucky but it's a plan," Ravi Shastri said on Fox Cricket. "It is a tactic they have used against Smith and it has paid off."
It's worth noting it was the second time he had been caught down the leg side this season after falling that way in the first innings of his one Sheffield Shield outing against Victoria, although on that occasion it was a shorter delivery into his hip.
In terms of fuller, straight deliveries, Smith has been lbw 32 times in his Test career with eight of them coming in the last two years. At his very best, Smith missed little off his pads. In 2024 alone he has been pinned by Kemar Roach, Matt Henry, Ben Sears and Bumrah.
"My gut feeling is he [Smith] has got some luck coming his way; as we just mentioned caught down the leg side [in Adelaide]," Callum Ferguson added on Around The Wicket. "But I feel like he's moving quite well through the ball, watching him closely at the ground commentating, it looks like his body weight is transferring both ways really nicely, but he just can't get away at the moment. Really hope he gets set and gets into the game because if he gets set then at some point he's going to hurt someone."
Smith is currently enduring a similar start to a series against India as happened last time in Australia in 2020-21 when he was three dismissals were 1, 0 and 8. Over the last two Tests he made scores 131, 81, 36 and 55 albeit they weren't enough to help Australia win the series.
"If you look at his record, stats would suggest it's not far around the corner," Pat Cummins said on Friday. "In particular this year he's looking fantastic in the nets. Just looking really sharp, looking like he's got plenty of time. He's doing all the right things like he always does. He got caught down the leg side too much, don't think you can look into that too much, so I'm sure a big score is just around the corner."
Meanwhile, in the opposite corner you have Virat Kohli, another of this generation's fab four. He has his second-innings hundred in Perth, but the jury remains out on the direction of his Test career in a year where he is averaging 26.64. It will be one of the fascinating subplots of the remaining three matches, watching two great players trying to rekindle something close to their best days.