MELBOURNE, Australia, CMC – Steve Smith will open the bat for the first time in his stellar 14-year test career when Australia faces West Indies in their two-test series starting next week in Adelaide.
With the retirement of veteran left-hander David Warner, the 34-year-old Smith will slide up the order, allowing all-rounder Cameron Green to slot into the vacant number four spot.
On Wednesday, the George Bailey-led selection panel recalled 27-year-old left-handed opener Matthew Renshaw in a 13-man squad that also contained 34-year-old speedster Scott Boland.
“This is where Steve wants to stay,” Bailey told reporters.
“One of the things I’m excited about the change is that he’s motivated and energized and excited about the opportunity, and fingers crossed that can provide some longevity in the format.
“For someone who has achieved as much as he has over such a long period across all formats, it’s a challenge or an itch he’d like to scratch, and ultimately, for us, as a team, it’s something that fits.
“It’s selfless that someone who’s had such success in one position or a couple of positions in the middle order, that he’s willing and hungry to have a crack at something different.”
The right-handed Smith has racked up 9 514 runs from 105 Tests at an average of 58, with 32 hundred, to be Australia’s leading current run-scorer.
Against West Indies, he averages 150, having scored three hundred with a best-of-an-unbeaten 200 in Perth two years ago.
While Renshaw was recalled a year after his last test, Green has been waiting in the wings and will start in the XI.
Green averages 33 with the bat and 36 with his seam in 24 Tests, and Bailey said he was the ideal candidate for the role in the middle order.
“It provides an opportunity to slot Greeny into number four where he’s had success for Western Australia,” Bailey explained.
“The regard in which we hold Cameron and the way the rest of that batting order is functioning left us feeling we have someone we think is pretty talented who was potentially going to find it pretty hard to get any Test cricket in the next 12 months or so.”
The opening Test bowls are on January 17 at Adelaide Oval, with the second one in Brisbane starting eight days later.
In three decades, the embattled West Indies have yet to win a Test series against Australia.
SQUAD – Pat Cummins (captain), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc.
and then 