Steve Smith Reveals That He Was The 12th Or 13th Spinner That Australia Tried After Shane Warne's Retirement

Former Australian captain Steven Smith is the World No.1 ranked Test batsman. This might look as an obvious statement, which it is, if one looks at the present context but the same thing would have been unfathomable a decade ago when Smith made his Test debut for Australia.

With the world under a lockdown, cricketers are resorting to online chats with their fellow mates. And, the latest to join the bandwagon is Steven Smith, who in a chat arranged by his Indian Premier League Rajasthan Royals opened up on a lot of things with New Zealand leg-spinner Ish Sodhi.

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Smith revealed that he came into the Australian side at a time when the former world champions were looking to fill the vacuum left in the spin department after the retirement of legendary Shane Warne. Smith, who admitted that he was more of a batsman than a bowler, was selected as a specialist spinner and was one of the 12th or 13th options that Australia had tried when he was handed his Test debut against Pakistan in the English summer of 2010.

“I was probably always more of a batsman than a bowler. I got picked in certain teams as more of a bowler which was different. Obviously played my first two Test matches as a specialist spinner which was strange in a way.” Smith said to Ish Sodhi in a chat on Rajasthan Royals official Facebook page.

Steve Smith made his debut against Pakistan at the ‘Home of Cricket’ Lord’s in 2010 where he came in to bat at number eight

He lasted just seven deliveries before being dismissed by leg-spinner Danish Kaneria. The right-handed leggie did not bowl in the first innings but took three in the second.

“They were looking for a spinner after the Shane Warne era and tried plenty of options at that time. Now we have got Nathan Lyon who is doing a terrific job but I was one of the 12 or 13 spinners that they tried. I got dropped after that and for me, I felt I can find a way back into the team through my batting. So at that point, I let my bowling slip away a bit,” said Smith.

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Smith was dropped post the Pakistan series and the 30-year-old revealed that after getting the snub, he decided to focus more on his batting in order to force his way back into the line-up.

“Before that, I was mixing and matching between batting and bowling and working on both in a session in the nets. Then it got to a point where, if a session is of three hours in the nets, I’d be doing probably two and half hours of batting,” said Smith.

He added: “Obviously I had to find a method that worked for me as well, which takes time. I was still at stage playing in the middle-order for New South Wales. It takes time to build the confidence to keep doing it. Eventually, I got back into the team by scoring runs for New South Wales and sort of never looked back since then.”

Smith has since then gone to break a plethora of records and has established himself as one of the all-time great Test batsmen and a bedrock of the Australian batting unit. In 73 Tests, the New South Wales cricketer has racked up 7227 runs at an average of 62.84 with the help of 26 centuries.