Steve Smith opens up on cricket future as final chapter of Test career looms large

With the end of Steve Smith’s Test career now closer than the start, the batting genius has revealed how he’s approaching the next stage of his cricketing journey.

Enjoy it while you can. One of the greatest batsmen the world has ever seen is entering the twilight of his career.

Steve Smith isn’t trying to alarm anyone, but he may only have a couple more years left in Test cricket. And that means a fairly major crossroads nears for the national team.

“No, I don’t have a plan, but I’m 33 now,” Smith says.

“I’ve been playing international cricket for 13 years. It’s a long time. I’m still enjoying it, but I’m certainly closer to the end than the start, that’s for sure.”

Unless injury or illness robs him of a game, Smith is on track to bring up his 100th Test match for Australia during next year’s Ashes at Old Trafford — the scene of his extraordinary urn-clinching double-century in 2019.

Smith’s current Test batting average of 60 is just a breath away from sitting as the second greatest of all time after Sir Donald Bradman’s 99.94.

Steve Smith is entering the twilight of his career. Picture: Getty Images

Another four Test centuries would bring him to 32 career tons — second only to Ricky Ponting (41) in the pantheon of Australian batting giants.

Another 1800-odd runs would also see Smith join Ponting, Allan Border and Steve Waugh as the only Australians with 10,000 Test runs. And he could well beat Brian Lara to become the fastest man in cricket history to reach that rare, golden milestone.

These numbers may not be relevant to when Smith does ultimately decide to call time. But they do illustrate the fact he has achieved just about all there is to conquer in the game of cricket, at least from an individual point of view.

Smith threatened to almost single-handedly engineer a historic away win for Australia in India back in 2017, a team tilt he can throw all his weight into again in the new year.

Steve Smith has achieved just about all there is to conquer in the game of cricket. Picture: Getty Images

Winning an Ashes series in the UK can also be ticked off the bucket list in 2023, as well as a shot at adding a third World Cup trophy to the cabinet at the end of the year.

It seems almost hard to believe that Smith could be preparing for his final chapter because even at 33, it still feels like he’s in the middle of his journey.

But the double whammy of his 12-month Sandpapergate ban, followed by the lost years of Covid, has cruelly robbed Smith – and fans – of some of his prime cricketing years.

“I really don’t know. I’d like to play for as long as I can while I’m still enjoying it and while I like working hard to get better,” Smith says.

It seems almost hard to believe that Steve Smith could be preparing for his final chapter. Picture: AFP

“When that stops, you know it’s the right time to finish up. We’ll see what the future holds. The major tournaments and series are the ones you want to be involved in and have an impact in as well, so there’s a few ones coming up over the next 12 to 18 months.

“We’ll see how we go.”

Smith’s Bradman-style explosion between 2014-17, where he piled on well over 1000 runs a year for four consecutive years, has slowed, with only two Test centuries made in the past three years.

It’s been a frustrating slog as opposition attacks have executed plans that have nullified Smith’s ability to score. But there is another potential factor at play that Smith admits he still isn’t sure how to quantify.

Part of the magic of Smith’s golden period was that his avalanche of runs came at a time when Australia lived or died by whether Smith and David Warner succeeded or failed. There was a cutthroat pressure to so many of Smith’s great knocks, where he would somehow lift the Titanic after arriving at the crease with Australia in crisis.

That extreme pressure to deliver in every innings is no longer there thanks in particular to the rise of Marnus Labuschagne, but also the mature-age bond of Warner and Usman Khawaja and the emergence of Travis Head and Cameron Green.

It’s a double-edged sword for Smith, who is enjoying the less stressful existence these days, but at the same time still yearns for the rush it brought him to be Mr All Or Nothing.

Smith also concedes he doesn’t know how much of a toll he might have paid for those years of high-octane pressure, and what that now means for the final chapter.

“Maybe. It’s hard to get a gauge on it,” Smith says.

The extreme pressure to deliver in every innings is no longer there for Steve Smith. Picture: AFP

“I liked the added pressure and responsibility. I probably thrived under it.

“I’m not sure whether down towards the back end of my career whether that has taken a toll. I think there’s probably a bit less pressure than there potentially used to be.

“There’s guys making valuable contributions all around with the bat.

“You’d expect a couple of us to come off each innings almost in a way, which is really good for the team. We’ve got a good squad of batters together, and guys are playing some good cricket.”

Smith denies he felt a weight lift from his shoulders when he broke a 10-innings century drought in Sri Lanka this year (the previous longest wait for a Smith century was his first 11 innings).

However, he has embraced the fact he has entered a new phase of his career where the days of teams not being able to bowl to him are gone — and he now has to really earn every run he scores.

“Potentially I guess I’m just facing a lot more balls to score my runs now a lot of the time,” Smith says.

Steve Smith has entered a new phase of his career. Picture: Getty Images

“Teams are setting a lot more defensive fields, so it’s going to take me longer to score bigger runs.

“It’s absorbing a lot of pressure and wearing the bowlers down, and whilst I may not be getting the big scores, it helps others as well. It’s a team mentality.

“I don’t think I have to change anything. I don’t have to change my strokeplay much. I would like to potentially put a bit more pressure back on at times and make them change some things. But particularly in Test cricket, it’s just getting the miles into the bowler’s legs as much as possible. And if you do that, someone is going to benefit at some point when the bowlers are tired.”

Smith enters this Test summer having gone through the experience of being left out of a first-choice Australian XI.

What impact may this have had on the inner workings of the quirky batting genius?

Steve Smith was on the outer during the T20 World Cup. Picture: Getty Images

Not selected for Australia until the final game of the Twenty20 World Cup, Smith’s predicament might be easily explained as “part of cricket”.

But it’s not so straightforward to mentally process being dropped when you’re an immortal.

Former Test selector Mark Waugh warned early in the warm-up games that Australia needed to be careful about Smith’s psyche and ego, given the unfamiliar territory he was cast into as a spare player.

Waugh didn’t disagree with the decision to promote big-hitter Tim David over Smith in the T20 format, but felt Smith would not have liked the fact captain Aaron Finch pushed himself down to take Smith’s No.4 role in warm-up games.

“It was a bit tough on Steve Smith. He was given no time to really play an innings in those warm-up games and prove his worth, even though everyone knows he’s a very good player,” Waugh said.

“It wouldn’t have sat well with Steve Smith. He’s been No.4 all his career. Then Aaron Finch has popped down and taken that spot to facilitate Cameron Green at the top. I can understand the selectors going that way with David. But Smith would be hurting because he wants to play. It’s the World Cup and he still thinks he’s good enough. But he’s got to be professional enough, and he’s experienced enough to know that that sort of comes with the territory.”