Steve Smith will continue to Australia in the fourth and final Test of the series against India which gets underway at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Thursday (March 9). Regular skipper Pat Cummins will not join back the team this week as well, staying back in Sydney with his ailing mother Maria who is palliative care after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
Smith, who replaced Cummins as skipper for the third Test in Indore, led his side to a commanding nine-wicket win over Rohit Sharma’s Team India last week. Australia are trailing India 1-2 in the four-match series but have secured their berth in the World Test Champions final later this year thanks to their win in Indore Test.
Smith has insisted that his time as full-time captain of Australia is over but is hopeful that Australia will be at least able to level the four-match series with a win in Ahmedabad. There still hasn’t been any call made on Cummins’ availability for the three-match ODI series that follows the Tests, with the pacer having also been appointed as 50-over captain last year taking over from Aaron Finch.
Steve Smith will captain Australia again in the fourth Test.https://t.co/b5rSqvx0ct
— Fox Cricket (@FoxCricket) March 6, 2023
Pacer Jhye Richardson, who suffered a recurrence of a left hamstring injury while playing club cricket on the weekend, has been ruled out of the ODIs and replaced by Nathan Ellis in the squad. Richardson has been plagued by injuries in recent times, having missed the back-end of the recent BBL-12 due to this latest hamstring concern.
On three occasions now, the former skipper has replaced Cummins as the captain and led the team to Test wins in the regular skipper’s absence due to COVID-19 bio-security rules, injury and now personal leave. Ahmedabad will be the fourth time that Smith is leading the side as the replacement skipper and will be hoping to continue his winning run.
“My time as captain is done. This is Patty’s team,” Smith told reporters after the Indore Test.
During the post-match presentation, Smith said he enjoys captaining in the sub-continent. “I really enjoyed this week. I like captaining in this part of the world. I feel like I understand the conditions really well and the intricacies of the game,” Smith said in the post-match presentation. “There’s an event every ball … it’s a lot different to the other parts of the world. I think I did a reasonable job this week.”
