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Slowly but surely, another great chapter in modern-day cricket is nearing its end. Steve Smith, a part of the 'fab four' which ruled the past few years across the formats with their respective nations, has provided some hints about his Test retirement.
He is now 37, well over his prime, and lacked flair in his body language and his words. When he was asked about the Ashes against their arch rival England, Steve Smith did not come out with any flaring words; instead, he came with a moment of truth. The Australian batter himself is well aware of the fact that he is not in his golden days anymore, and from here, there will be only a downslope in his career as a professional cricketer.
Steve Smith to retire from Test cricket
So, instead of going ballistic against the arch rivals ahead of another Ashes series in England, Steve Smith sounded rather diplomatic, hinting at his retirement from the longest format of the game.
"I don’t even know if I’ll be there yet. I’m kind of a series-by-series proposition, as I’ve been for a while, and that’s still a fair way away for me right now. So, yeah, I’d love to win one there or to have won one there, but you wait and see if that comes to fruition," Smith said, admitting that he could retire from Tests.
Who will replace Steve Smith in the Australian batting order?
For the last few years, there is more or less the same bunch of players who have been representing the Australian national cricket team. Throughout the years, Smith remiains as a pillar of the national side's batting unit. The question arises: who will replace the star batter after he retires from Test cricket?
Recently, due to heavy schedules and workload management of the players, Cricket Australia has been forced to make changes in the playing elevens multiple times. While in most cases, cricket boards prefer younger cricketers to replace the seniors, the scenario in Australian cricket is different. In their domestic cricket, batters who are performing well in the Sheffield Shield are no longer young talents, as the average age of the top 10 batters in the domestic tournament is below 37.
Steve Smith is not bothered with any performing batter's age
Smith, however, is not bothered with the age thing. For him, under the current circumstances, where batting and scoring become difficult, anyone's batting average over 40 is appreciable. So if a batter is above 35 but batting significantly well, he deserves to represent the national team, as Smith believes.
"I’m not too fussed about that. From my point of view, it’s extremely hard batting at the moment, and if you’re seeing guys averaging up above 40, then they’re incredibly good. So I think if you’re up anywhere above 35, you’re probably doing pretty good," Steve Smith told the Telegraph.
As of now, Smith has scored 10,920 runs in Tests for Australia in 125 matches,s 223 innings, averaging 56.00 with 37 hundreds and 45 half-centuries.
