Steve Smith’s burning ambition as Ashes series looms

Steve Smith says he is excited by the challenge of taking on the new-look England side, but won’t be changing his approach.

Australia’s star batsman Steve Smith beneath Brighton pier as he joins English county side Sussex in the lead up to the Ashes series. Picture: Getty Images

Steve Smith says he is excited by the challenge of taking on the new-look England side, but won’t be changing his approach even if the home team gets the “fast, flat” wickets demanded by captain Ben Stokes.

“As a batter, you generally like playing on flatter wickets,” he said. “I’ll probably play just my game, which I think has always been going up and down in the gears, putting pressure on the bowlers when I can and absorbing pressure when I need to.

“I don’t think I’ll go into anything too rash and do what I’ve done throughout my career and not shy away from that too much.”

Smith is keeping his friends close and enemies even closer as he embarks on a brief and controversial stint for English county side Sussex ahead of the World Test Championship final against India and the five-Test series against England.

Smith’s team includes English bowler Ollie Robinson and Indian great Cheteshwar Pujara.

The last of his three games before he joins Australia for the international matches will be against Marnus Labuschagne and Michael Neser, who are both biding time at Glamorgan.

“A window opened up and it’s something I’ve never done and have always wanted to do, so the stars aligned in a way,” Smith said,

“I’ll bat No.5 (behind Pujara). Hopefully the boys can pile them on and I’ll come in on the back of them. It’s going to be exciting. I’ve played a lot against Pujara, watched him churn out plenty of runs. So it’d be nice to spend some time in the middle with him and put a few good partnerships together.”

Robinson appears to have scored the early points against his temporary teammate.

“Ollie bowled to me yesterday, so that wasn’t ideal,” Smith said. “But I was impressed with him when he was out in Australia (in 2021-22). I thought he had some really good skills. He’s quite tall, he hit some good areas and looks like he’s got better since then. So I’m looking forward to playing with him this week, seeing how he goes. He’s obviously an exciting prospect for England.”

Smith, who turns 34 next month, averaged 110 in his spectacular comeback to cricket in the 2019 Ashes and has a brilliant record from 16 Tests in England dating back to his debut there in 2010.

“I’ve seen a lot of talk about getting used to conditions but you’ve got to remember I’ve played a lot of cricket in England before, so conditions aren’t really new to me,” he said when asked about the controversy about him warming up with Sussex.

Australia drew the series and retained the Ashes under Tim Paine’s captaincy in 2019 but has not won a series in England since 2001.

Smith believes that part of the problem has been an inability to adjust quickly enough.

“The conditions, the wicket sometimes, the Dukes ball is obviously different to the Kookaburra back home,” he said. “The sun or clouds change it; you’ve got to be able to adapt. We probably haven’t adapted well enough when we’ve been over for the last 20 years.”

Smith says he hopes he can improve on the last effort this time around and get Australia to its first win in an Ashes series in England for 22 years.

“That’s the plan. I’ve got a lot of fond memories from 2019 and the way I played and I’d love to replicate that,” he said.

“It would be a huge one to tick off the bucket list. We haven’t been able to do it but we got close last time.”