While he was struck on the fourth day of the Lord's Test and neither took the field nor batted again, a gap of merely three days between the two games means he has little time to find his feet again. Smith did return to bat in Australia's first innings after being hit, but woke up with headache and concussion symptoms the following morning.

Thus, Marnus Labuschagne, who took Smith's place in the eleven for the second innings in the last match as international cricket's first concussion substitute, will start the match at Headingley. The blow to Smith has meant that vice-captain Travis Head has installed the stem guard - an extra protection at the base of the helmet - for the remaining matches in series, something which Cricket Australia looks forward to making mandatory over the next one year.

"I didn't usually [wear the stem guard]. I guess with the conditions in Australia, you can sway out [of] the way, the bounce is quite true," Head said. "I think what we have seen at Lord's with the slope, there was a lot of balls following batters and going down the slope. I wore it yesterday and probably will wear it for the rest of the series I guess. The wickets are a little bit slower and you can get some that do different things, so it is not as true bounce. I guess, as you've seen with Steve getting hit, you can get yourself into tricky positions".

The loss of Smith has meant Australia have to make do without their in-form batsman who single-handedly carried his side to victory at Edgbaston with scores of 144 and 142, and followed that up with a 92 in the first innings at Lord’s. Of biggest concern for the visitors has been the rough patch of their openers David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, who have totalled merely 62 runs in a combined eight innings so far. How Australia cope up with that and the absence of Smith for Headingley remains to be seen, though drastic changes are not expected.