Australia’s Steve Smith will be the standby captain for Australia in the third test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy if skipper Pat Cummins’s return to India is delayed according to reports. Pat Cummins had headed home owing to a family medical situation, earlier in the week.
The retirement of Michael Clarke following Australia’s 3–2 defeat in the 2015 series saw Smith appointed as the full-time captain of the Australian Test team. Team Australia had high success under his captaincy, but he was removed from captaincy following sand-paper incident against South Africa.
Last year, Steve Smith captained Australia in the second test against West Indies, where Australia hammered West Indies by 419 runs. Australia has a lot of injuries heading into the series with Cameron Green, Mitchell Starc, and Josh Hazelwood battling with injuries.
“Despite Australia’s batting issues in this series, there will be a squeeze on if both Warner and Green are fit for the third Test, especially given the last man in, Peter Handscomb, has made himself indispensable as the team’s second-leading run scorer for the series,” according to cricket.com.au
Steve Smith had poor series with the bar so far in the ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy. His scored a duck in the 1st innings followed by struggling 9 runs in the second innnings. Cameron Green and Mitchell Starc are likely to come back into the side in the Indore Test. Green will add a lot of depth to the Australian team in both the batting and bowling department. Australia will look to stage a comeback into the series in Indore.
Steve Smith Likely To America’s Major League Cricket in 2024
According to reports, Steve Smith is in talks with the Major League Cricket team for his appearance in the next year’s edition. The inaugural Major League Cricket competition gets underway in July this year, played across three weeks in Texas and North Carolina.
According to a report in News Corp, while Steve Smith will be unavailable for this year’s MLC since he will be featuring in the Ashes, the star batter is in talks with the team about making an appearance in 2024. Smith did not put his name in IPL 2023 Auction after going unsold in IPL 2022. However, he put up some fantastic performances in BBL, smashing two centuries in just 5 matches. Steve Smith fell out of favor in T20 Cricket for Australia.