Smith the opener dares quicks to bounce him with new ball

Adelaide: Steve Smith has dared the world’s fast bowlers to waste the new ball by bowling short to him, ahead of his fresh start as a Test opener against the West Indies in Adelaide from Wednesday.

Smith let his partner Usman Khawaja know he had been given the nod to open last week by texting him to ask who should take the first ball at Adelaide Oval. After Smith’s first-baller in the Big Bash League on Friday night, Khawaja can be expected to take strike.

Steve Smith ahead of the Adelaide Test, where he will assume a new role as a Test match opener against the West Indies.Credit: Getty Images

Nevertheless, Smith made it clear that the negative tactics opponents have used against him since 2019 will now be loaded with the risk of blemishing the new ball by landing it halfway down the pitch. Unquestionably, Smith wants to score more freely in the role, taking advantage of attacking fields and lengths in the way David Warner so often did in the Test career that ended at the SCG last week.

“It’s pretty game, I suppose, with a brand new ball; bowling short stuff and wasting it,” Smith said in Adelaide. “I think it helps the scoring rate for sure when you’re facing the new ball and there’s a bit more attacking going on. Over the last few years I’ve come in after quite a lot of runs, the ball is a bit softer, you have a cover in and maybe four on the leg side and guys are bowling straight and able to control the scoreboard a little bit more.

“That’s probably kept me quieter and made me face a lot more balls to score runs. So perhaps that changes a bit with the new ball, you have a bit more attacking fields and more gaps out there to score runs. You’d obviously have a feel for the wicket, what the ball’s doing, the pace of the wicket and all those kinds of things. It certainly helps spending that time out there before those things [short bowling tactics] happen.”

Informal discussions about the possibility of Smith moving up to open date back as far as the Ashes tour last year, at a time when there was no certainty that Warner would make it all the way to Sydney. But it was only at the SCG that Smith convinced the selectors that he was not just stirring up conversation and genuinely wanted to do it.

“I’d kind of been pushing it for a few weeks, even before Perth, and I might even have floated in in England just randomly and said, ‘I’ll get up top’ and ‘I’m happy to play up top’,” Smith said. “But in Perth, I kind of said, ‘after Davey’s done I’m absolutely keen to get up there’.

“I don’t think they took me seriously until I got to Sydney and I was like ‘you know I’m actually being genuine here, I’ll be keen to get up top and face the new ball’. And they’re like, ‘all right, we’ll take that under advisement and see how it all looks’.

“With Marnus being here now for a few years [at number three], and doing well, I’ve had to sit there and wait for a long time [to bat], and it is something I don’t really enjoy doing. I don’t like waiting to bat, I never really have, and I don’t like watching cricket too much, believe it or not. I’d prefer to be out there batting, so it gets a bit boring sitting there.”

As for Cameron Green – who last year came into the management stable of Smith’s long-time agent, Warren Craig – support for the young man’s batting evolution also factored strongly in the former captain’s mind.

Smith and Green joined Khawaja, Labuschagne, Mitch Marsh and Alex Carey in the nets at training on Sunday afternoon. Travis Head was absent after being rested from BBL duty between Test series, but is expected to train on Monday.

“They (the selectors) were obviously very keen to get Cameron in the side as well, and play our best six batters,” Smith said. “For me, it didn’t sort of sit right having him come in and bat up top, I’ve played for a long time, I’m an experienced player and I think it is something I should have done.

“He’s a good player and I think he’s suited to number four. He plays there in Shield cricket, he does well there, and I think he’s a bit like me in terms of I don’t think he likes to wait too much. So you don’t have to wait as long at four as you do at six (where Green has previously batted). It is a good opportunity for him, and that was part of my reason for wanting to go up the order. It wasn’t selfishly just because I wanted to, it was to get Greeny in to bat at four and give him that opportunity.”

What happens if Smith struggles for runs and fluency at the top of the order? He’ll think about it only if and when he has to. For now, Smith’s head is full of the runs he plans to make as an opener, with bowlers compelled to attack him again.

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