It has been a while for Steve Smith, almost three years in fact.
The 25-year-old allrounder is set to play his 21st Twenty20 International match in Sunday’s game against Pakistan in Dubai.
That will be 1084 days since his 20th game in Johannesburg against South Africa on October 16, 2011.
“I don’t think I’ve played a T20 as a batter as such. I was kind of the spinner back when I was playing,” Smith told reporters on Friday.
“I’m happy with where my game is at in the shorter form and hopefully I can get a few big scores and cement my spot in all three forms.”
Smith, who took four wickets at an average of 11.25 in the ODI tri-series against South Africa and hosts Zimbabwe in August and September, is keen to play a major role with the ball in the three-match ODI series against Pakistan starting on Tuesday in Sharjah.
“I’ve been working on it quite a bit for the last couple of months,” the NSW legspinner said.
“I’m at a place where I’m happy with where my batting is at the moment so I’ve slowly brought my spin bowling back into it and the ball is coming out pretty well in the nets.”
After solid batting performances at Test level including averaging 67.25 on Australia’s tour of South Africa in February and March and hitting two Ashes centuries last summer, Smith aspires to be a batting allrounder rather than simply a batsman.
“I really enjoy being in the game as much as possible,” he said.
“You’ve got to work pretty hard. I reckon legspin is the hardest form of bowling in the game.”
Smith says the absence of Pakistan’s star offspinner Saeed Ajmal from this month’s T20, ODI and Test series is disappointing.
“I would have loved to have come up against him,” the dashing right-hander said.
“He’s been the best spin bowler in the world in the past couple of years and we love challenging ourselves against the best in the world.”
STEVE SMITH’S T20 INTERNATIONAL RECORD
* Age: 25
* Bowls: leg spin
* Bats: right-handed
* Games: 20 (last match October 16 2011)
* Runs: 165 at 15.00
* Wickets: 17 at 21.94
Don Freo
Guest
Amen! He's finally going to bowl some more. He has a beautiful leggie action and all he needs is to do it. Bowlers can't improve unless they bowl...as much as possible. There are 2 blokes around the Aussie side who aren't too bad for advice, too. I think their names are Murali and Warne (they might have an experience or 2 and a tip or 2 that could be useful). This could be one of the stories of the summer. The pace bowling all-rounders are exciting but a wicket taking spinner...as against a flat trajectory trundler...would add another thread to the tapestry of the Oz sides.