Steve Smith unleashes in Major League Cricket debut

Amid the fallout from Australia’s poor showing at the T20 World Cup were plenty of selection questions and a star who missed out has shown his worth.

Steve Smith showed the Australian T20 selectors who snubbed him for the World Cup what they missed with an electric boundary-hitting performance in his first outing in Major League Cricket in the US.

The veteran batting star is among 18 Australians featuring in the fledgling competition having taken to the T20 circuit during a lengthy break in the Test calendar.

But the debut for batting dynamo Jake Fraser-McGurk, the man earmarked to take over form retired opener David Warner, didn’t go as well, making just nine for the San Francisco Unicorns, who were rescued by another likely inclusion in Australia’s new look T20 team when they next assemble.

Matt Short, who with Fraser-McGurk was a reserve batter at the World Cup, smashed five sixes in his 26-ball innings of 58 in Dallas which helped propel their team to a cruisy opening win despite three wickets from another Aussie, fast bowler Spencer Johnson.

Prior to Australia’s early exit from the T20 World Cup, former Australian captain Mark Taylor said Smith’s omission from the 15-man squad was “the worry for me”.

In his first outing for the Washington Freedom in North Carolina, Smith, who recently turned 35, showed selectors what they missed, swatting three sixes and four fours in a 28-ball innings of 46, finishing unbeaten in a big win in a rain-marred match.

Steve Smith & fours - Now that's a thing of beauty 🫶#MLC2024#FreedomExpress#MINYvWF@[e-mail]/9moq1gFJdv

— Washington Freedom (@WSHFreedom) July 7, 2024

Smith, the Freedom’s captain, opened the batting with Travis Head, who made only one, as part of a batting line-up that also featured Glenn Maxwell, who wasn’t needed.

They are among six members of the World Cup squad fronting up in the US, including Marcus Stoinis, the only Australian to make the official ICC team of the tournament.

Last week, former Australian selector and cricket great Mark Waugh called for sweeping changes to the T20 team, labelling players like Fraser-McGurk too good not to have been at the World Cup.

“With the amount of talent we’ve got in the squad and around the squad, we should do a lot better than that,” he told Fox Sports.

“We’ve got a lot of good players who didn’t play in that tournament.

“Jake Fraser-McGurk should have been in the squad because you just have him there, ready, locked and loaded to go if you need him, but he wasn’t there.”

Originally published as Steve Smith unleashes in Major League Cricket debut