Steve Smith won’t give up ODI captaincy in review of series loss to England

HAVING a stand-alone skipper seems to have worked for England’s ODI team as they turned over Australia — but that doesn’t mean Steve Smith will give up the armband.

Smith’s summer went from very high to very low. (AAP Image/Richard Wainwright)

STEVE Smith won’t give up the captaincy as part of a comprehensive review of Australia’s poor-performing one-day team, despite a stand-alone skipper working for England’s successful outfit.

Fourteen months from next year’s World Cup in Britain, Australia’s title defence is on shaky ground after the 4-1 series loss to Eoin Morgan’s England.

Australia has lost 11 of its past 13 one-day games and Smith failed to get going in any of the five matches, averaging 20 with a strike rate of less than 70.

After scoring 23.5 per cent of Australia’s runs in an imperious Ashes series, and drawing comparisons to Sir Donald Bradman, Smith’s contribution was down to 8 per cent in the one-dayers.

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Smith’s summer went from very high to very low. (AAP Image/Richard Wainwright)

Smith said it had been a “long summer” which could have affected his batting and captaincy.

England Test skipper Joe Root on the other hand was named man of the one-day series after handing captaincy duties to Morgan, who has reinvented the team since the 2015 World Cup.

Australian selectors have flirted with the idea of different Test and limited-overs captains in the past, and Smith is being rested from the Twenty20 tri-series that starts on Saturday night.

Vice-captain David Warner, who averaged just 14 in the one-day series, will lead the side.

Despite his workload, Smith said he wouldn’t be giving up the one-day job and wanted to captain the side at the World Cup.

Eoin Morgan did what Joe Root couldn’t for England. (Phil Hillyard)

“I’m happy leading these boys at the moment,” Smith said after the 12-run Game 5 loss to England in Perth on Sunday night.

“Unfortunately I haven’t done as well with the bat in this series as I would have liked.

“Both me and Dave (Warner) as the senior players haven’t stepped up. That really hurts your team when your two senior players aren’t scoring the runs they need to be.

“But look, I’d like to keep taking this team forward and leading the boys and doing the best I can.

“We’re going to have to have a talk about it. It’s probably been a good year since we’ve played good one-day cricket. We’ve got a lot of improving to do if we want to be a force in the World Cup in just over 12 months’ time.”

Australia’s next one-dayers are five matches in England in June.

Before that there is a four-Test series in South Africa and the Indian Premier League, and Smith said he would use a brief break now to get ready for both.

“I’m looking forward to this rest. It’s been a long summer,” he said.

“I’ve got a couple of weeks now to refresh, recharge, and get myself ready for what will be a challenging South Africa tour.”

Originally published as Steve Smith won’t give up ODI captaincy in review of series loss to England