Steve Smith heckled by own fan and at centre of new Snicko storm

“Normally [the technology] it’s pretty good, well maybe I didn’t nick it, I don’t know, but I definitely felt something. If I’d been given out, I was going to walk off but, yeah, technology saved me today, I guess.”

The incident follows a string of issues from last winter’s Ashes involving the technology used for Australia’s test matches, most notably centurion Alex Carey edging behind in Adelaide, but not being given out.

As Smith batted on, he incurred the wrath of a fan in Darwin. Smith, who is an all-time great known for being fidgety at the crease, was holding up the game because of movement behind the bowler’s arm.

A man in the stands shouted: “Just hit the damn thing Smudge! Stop being a princess!”.

After a short pause, he shouted: “You’re not bigger than the game, Steve! Deal with it!”.

Ricky Ponting, the former Australia captain, took aim at the selectors during day one of the test.

Australia are at the start of a legacy-defining run of potentially 21 tests in 12 months, ending with next summer’s Ashes. In that period, they also tour South Africa for the first time since “sandpapergate” in 2018, host New Zealand for four tests and visit India for five.

Bangladesh have been invited to Australia’s far north for two tests and the home side have not experimented at all with their selection, with 27-year-old Cameron Green the only player in their squad under 31.

Ponting was highly critical of Australia’s lack of experimentation in a series they are expected to win. Ponting was speaking on Channel 7 at lunch, by which point the three under-pressure members of Australia’s top five – Jake Weatherald, Marnus Labuschagne and Green – had all been dismissed cheaply.

“So, look, what’s the state of Australian cricket?” Ponting said. “This has been a very, very successful cricket team. [But] right now, there are a couple of chinks in the armour and the selectors decided to stick with what they know.

“At the end of last season, I thought the time was right now to blood a couple of youngsters into these two test matches.”

Ponting said an opportunity had been missed to include Victoria’s Campbell Kellaway, an opener, and Ollie Peake, a middle-order batsman, in what was, on paper at least, the simplest test assignment Australia have over the next year.

“At the end of last year, I said Kellaway and Peake were the ones that I wanted to have,” he said.

“And that’s the spots that were coming up in this side.

“So they decided not to do that. But my worry is, when do they do that? Are you going to debut these guys in South Africa against [Kagiso] Rabada and [Marco] Jansen and co?

“I think that would be a whole lot harder. So I just feel there’s an opportunity here that may have been missed.”

Ponting said “we were all surprised” with Pat Cummins’ decision to bat, but felt that did not absolve the batting.

“What I’ve seen so far today is just the same mistakes being made again, particularly by some of our top-order players,” he said.

“Almost sometimes an over-intent to try to score [from] the balls that aren’t quite there, hence Weatherald’s dismissal.

“And you look at Marnus and there’s a lack of intent to try to score, which builds pressure on him and keeps the bowlers in the game. And then he gets out the same way that we’ve seen a lot over the last couple of years.”