Can England find their Steven Smith?

The Ashes 2013. Australia are being beaten by a good-ish England side for whom beating Australia is becoming routine; routine enough for their game to be lifted only periodically to its previous heights.

The fourth Test, in Durham, which secured the urn encapsulated things: England had conceded a first-innings lead and relied on an Ian Bell hundred to set Australia 299, a target that hove briefly into view during a century opening stand before Stuart Broad produced a 40-ball spell of 5 for 20. England were 3-0 up, despite having been behind on first innings in three of the four Tests and having only one of their top seven batsmen averaging over 40 for the series.

The fifth Test, at The Oval, is billed as a "celebration party", and when Michael Clarke is dismissed with the Australian score on 144, the idea that these teams are now on opposite trajectories, Australia up and England down, seems a distant one. Steven Smith walks in. He is playing in his 12th Test match. He's generally regarded as an allrounder, bats a bit, bowls some legspin. He's a bits-and-pieces guy in a transitioning team. He averages 46.62 with the ball and 29.52 with the bat. He started out at No. 8 in the order and then moved to No. 6. When Ricky Ponting retired, he moved up to No. 5. His highest score is 92.

At the other end is Shane Watson, who began the Ashes series as an opener but is now at No 3. He has batted in more places in the order than Smith. He has made two centuries in 83 innings. Together they put on 145 before Watson goes for 176. Smith bats on, and although his technique still looks a million miles away from that of a top-line Test player, he carves and flicks his way to 138 not out. It feels as though England, foot well off the gas, eye well off the ball, have just conceded Ashes hundreds to players who shouldn't really be making them.

Cut forward to Kingston, Jamaica, last week. Smith, Australia's No. 3 and captain-elect, makes 199 and 54 not out and ascends to the top of the ICC Test rankings, moving past Kumar Sangakkara, AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla. His technique is still way out there - he played some quick, full-length, swinging deliveries from Jerome Taylor off the back foot, his bat whipping the ball away just as it seemed certain to bury itself in his pads - but it now had a tremendous solidity too, built by patience and judgement and the acquisition of knowledge.

Smith's story is one of potential seen and fulfilled. It poses a question of how many other such players slip by. England, now the transitioning side in the forthcoming battle, find themselves with several men in similar positions.

When Ben Stokes had played one of his infuriating shots a while ago, Steve Harmison said, "If you bat him at No. 8, he'll play like a No. 8. If you bat him at five, he'll bat like a No. 5…"

Harmison was right, and the remark may also apply to Moeen Ali, who in just his fourth Test innings, stroked a sublime century against Sri Lanka from No. 7, but now finds himself batting at eight (and out of the ODI team, where he has made two hundreds as an opener) so that he can work on bowling that may not be good enough to keep him in the team. Or Jos Buttler, a shot-maker dazzling enough to have been singled out by Viv Richards, but saddled with the gloves and the "Gilchrist role" that you suspect will soon be outmoded in the new, full-on form of Test cricket that is coming down the pipe (Adam Gilchrist is an exception in more ways than one: almost every keeper with his kind of batting talent has ultimately surrendered the gloves, from Kumar Sangakkara to Brendon McCullum).

Because of the structure of world cricket and its variety of formats, many more players will arrive in Test cricket as unformed talents, with selectors more sure of their ability than their role. How they are perceived by their captain and their coach may well define what they become.

Australia's decision to stick with Steven Smith is a fine example.