Steve Smith’s days as an all-format player could be numbered

IPL Winner Warne and former national T20 selector Mark Waugh have both raised the question of whether Australia would be better placed instead with a player with more power.

“When you have Smith as Mr Fix-It, when he’s still there at the end, then [Matthew] Wade or [Marcus] Stoinis might not get a hit which means Australia won’t be able to post that huge score, ”Warne said on the Fox Cricket during the Sri Lanka series.

“You can’t waste these guys, these power hitters have to take up these deliveries. These guys have got to be out there. ”

Franchises in the Indian Premier League have returned their verdict, snubbing him at last weekend’s mega auction. Twelve months earlier, Rajasthan Royals released him from a $ 2 million deal.

Stoinis and Glenn Maxwell, two of Australia’s most experienced exponents of the T20, say Smith still has an important role to play with the bat, and with his on-field guidance as a senior player.

Smith’s teammates point to his twin 62-ball one-day centuries in one-day Internationals against India in late 2020 as evidence they can score at a high rate.

“It gives people confidence we have arguably the best player of our generation there to mop things up with the bat if things don’t go to plan,” Stoinis said.

“It also means if you do lose wickets in the power play they come in and you don’t expose someone like myself or maxy, who are there for a different type of role.

“I have played a lot of T20 against and with Smudge. You watch Smudge in Big Bash and he’s not there to fix it up. He’s there to step around the stumps and hit sixes over square leg and hit inside out.

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“His Cricket brain, how he understands the game, how he plays the situation in front of him we can trust he’s doing the right thing that he believes for the team in that situation.”

Smith is one of Australia’s best players of the spin, a middle-over staple in the T20s, but England, after some early hiccups, has proven himself to be comfortable against slow bowling.

“In Australia, it’s probably a little bit easier to play spin but his footwork patterns are really crisp,” Maxwell said.

“He’s able to move forward and back, use his feet, he sweeps both sides, which makes it a real handful to set a field against and he’s able to access different parts of the ground to put pressure on the opposition, which is a Massive key facing spin in any part of the world, really. ”

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