Pat Cummins expects great things of Steve Smith in his first Test matches in South Africa since the infamous 2018 tour, even if the captain concedes he has no guarantees that his deputy will see it through to the end of 19 Tests over the next 10 months.
Asked about how long he expected 37-year-old Smith to carry on, Cummins pointed to the fact that Travis Head was installed as a fellow vice-captain in 2023 precisely because he and the selectors cannot be sure of Smith’s intentions beyond a series by series basis.
Even so, Cummins has sensed a particular eagerness from Smith to do well in South Africa on this trip, eight years on from the sandpaper scandal. In some ways, the motivation to return in glory is not dissimilar to what drove Smith to otherworldly levels of performance in England in 2019, with 774 runs in four matches.
“You’re never quite 100 per cent sure,” Cummins told this masthead of Smith’s future. “But Steve seems like he’s in a really good spot, chatting to him he’s really enjoying his cricket, in awesome form, so I don’t see any reason why it’s going to end anytime soon.
“I’ll chat to Steve when he gets over here, but part of the reason why Trav is there as vice-captain is for the day when Steve does retire.”
It’s a symptom of the age that the only wider goal Smith has set is to try to make Australia’s Twenty20 side for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. To that end, it’s possible to picture him hanging up his baggy green cap in Sydney in January (per David Warner and Usman Khawaja in recent times) and then pursuing franchise leagues, including Major League Cricket in the US during the 2027 Ashes series.
“I don’t even know if I’ll be there yet,” Smith has said of next year’s Ashes. “I’m kind of a series-by-series proposition, as I’ve been for a while, and that’s still a fair way away for me right now. So, yeah, I’d love to win one there or to have won one there, but you wait and see if that comes to fruition.
“Right now probably [my goal is] just the Olympics to try to be a part of that. One of the reasons why I wanted to play with Amsterdam … was just to continue playing as much T20 cricket as I can.”
The Smith conundrum sums up a crossroads rapidly looming for Cummins and head coach Andrew McDonald, wherein younger players must come in to regenerate world cricket’s oldest team.
But by his endorsement of Mitch Marsh for a Test comeback and then by Nic Maddinson’s surprising recall, having just recovered from cancer treatment at the age of 34, Cummins and the panel have indicated they are not looking to make that shift against hardened opponents such as the world Test champion Proteas.
Australia will need to reshuffle things if Cameron Green cannot shrug off an abdominal strain in time to play in Durban on Friday. Fellow West Australian youngster Cooper Connolly is favoured to play his second Test in that event.
“I know it’s going to happen at some place where more of the starting XI of the Test side is going to shift to some of these young guys and it’ll be exciting,” Cummins said. “But so far, a lot of the time the Test side has been more experienced guys coming in.”
That experience, personified by the likes of Smith, Head, Marnus Labuschagne and wicketkeeper Alex Carey, will be entrusted with finding a way to deal with what’s expected to be a turning pitch in Durban – putty in the crafty hands of the left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj.
A record of 23 wickets at a shade above 44 may look modest, but 17 of those victims were collected in the 2018 series on home soil, and there have been numerous occasions where Maharaj has outbowled Nathan Lyon.
“He’s a good bowler, he’s experienced, it might spin a bit in Durban, but you’ve got to try to come up with answers to quality opposition, and that’s the challenge,” Cummins said. “He’s got a little bit of craft but it’s not mystery spin, so it’s about us coming up with methods to keep the scoreboard moving.
“We’ve done it many times in the past, someone like Smithy is one of the best players of spin ever, so I’m sure we’ll have plans and whatever gets thrown at us, you’ve got to find a way to put on some big totals.
“Preparation is never an excuse coming into a series like this, we’ve got the time and the resources, so we’ll make sure we’ve got all bases covered.”
Somewhat ironically given their own state of imminent transition, Australia are facing opponents who have proven remarkably resilient to often-forced changes to their side, as franchise leagues and English counties commonly pick off Proteas far earlier than their better-paid Australian equivalents.
Temba Bavuma and coach Shukri Conrad have proven a formidable South African leadership duo in recent times, though the schedule did not afford them even a single home Test match last summer.
“They always seem to have a pretty strong next crop of players coming through. [Lungi] Ngidi debuted the last time we played them eight years ago, we hadn’t seen him before and he bowled really well that series,” Cummins said.
“They’re a side we’ve played quite a bit in white-ball cricket, but we haven’t seen too many Test matches against them, so they are a bit harder to size up in terms of how they go about their red ball.
“But similar to us their red-ball season is kicking off, so you know they’re going to have strong players to choose from.”
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Daniel Brettig is The Age’s chief cricket writer and the author of several books on cricket.Connect via X.
