Australia confident of Steve Smith's participation in T20 World Cup, Ashes

The Australian batting giant is recovering from an elbow injury.

Steve Smith | GettyAustralia batsman Steve Smith sustained a recurring elbow injury and has not played many matches post the first-leg of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021. The middle-order batsman is now recovering and the selectors face a tricky balancing act of managing his workload in the ICC T20 World Cup and the Ashes. 

Smith's elbow injury has been a problem for years but it has aggravated lately. He looked in pain while batting for Delhi Capitals and failed to score big on a consistent basis. 

Smith has been named in Australia's T20 World Cup squad that was announced on Thursday (August 19), after missing the tours of West Indies and Bangladesh. 

Read also: David Warner, Steve Smith, Pat Cummins return as Australia name squad for T20 World Cup 2021

Australia chief selector George Bailey said he is “really confident” that Smith would play a big part in both World Cup and the Ashes but revealed that the latter is still a long way from being fit for Test matches. 

"He’s building up nicely. The latest update I had from him is he’s facing up over 100 balls in a session pretty comfortably," George Bailey told reporters in a video call.

"That’s about a quarter of what he’d like to be facing for a test match so he’s got a little bit of building up to go there,” he said. 

Bailey further said that the senior batsman will play through pain if the risk-reward ratio is favourable. 

“There would obviously be a number where the risk would outweigh the benefit. We’ve got to place a little bit of trust in Steve as someone who knows his body and knows exactly what he needs to be able to perform at a level that’s required,” he concluded. 

Australia will face South Africa on 23 October to kickstart their T20 World Cup campaign. They will later face Afghanistan in a one-off Test starting from 27 November before the start of the Ashes.

(Inputs from Reuters)
 

 
 

By - 19 Aug, 2021

    Share Via