The third day of the Adelaide Test witnessed a heart-warming gesture from Australian vice-captain Steve Smith who was seen tying the shoelaces of West Indies debutant Shamar Joseph. The visitors were struggling against the Aussie attack and were 9 down for 110. Joseph, who was batting on 11, noticed his untied laces and got some assistance from Smith who was fielding at slips.

Interestingly, Smith was dismissed by Joseph off the very first ball of his Test career. It was the 9th over of Australia’s first essay when Joseph was deployed into the attack. The 24-year-old bowled a good length delivery while Smith looked to defend the ball which was angling back towards him. It took a thick outside edge and got deflected towards the slips where Justin Greaves took a great catch diving towards his left.                 

That was the headline and excerpt from the report on news18.com But for the sake of any non-cricket followers out there, let me rephrase…

A debutant player from the West Indies, (Shamar Joseph) bowled out one of the world’s best batsmen, the star player, (Steve Smith) on his first ball. Then in the following innings, when Shamar Joseph was batting, his shoelace came undone. Again, if you’re unfamiliar with the sport, just to be clear, wearing cricket pads (leg guards) makes it rather difficult to bend down to do anything, let alone complete an intricate task such as tying shoelaces. As you can probably imagine, you’d have rather an awkward, fumbling, nuisance of a time doing it.

In a remarkable act of sportsmanship, Steve Smith walked over, bent down, and tied Shamar’s shoelaces.

That’s one of the things I love about cricket. It’s really the only ball sport I have any interest in following. There aren’t many other sports out there where this level of sportsmanship is displayed. It’s tremendous!

I was sharing this with Mark Harrison, who I must give credit to for seeing this display on a deeper level.

What we have here is a picture of the gospel. On one side of the picture we have the debutant – you, me, human-kind (sinners), and on the other, we have the star player – Jesus Christ.

The debutant bowls out the star > The sinner crucifies Christ.

The star bends down and ties the debutant’s shoelaces > Christ stoops down and dies for the sinner.

Philippians 2:6-8
6 Who, being in very nature God,
    (Jesus) did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

Romans 5:8-10

8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!