Steve Smith has sought to douse the gently smouldering embers of controversy surrounding his use of the County Championship to prepare himself for facing England in this summer’s Ashes, insisting that his next few weeks at Sussex will make no difference whatsoever to his chances of success once the series gets under way in June.
“I don’t think that’s the case at all,” he said of the possibility England would come to regret letting him into their domestic game. “I’ve seen a lot of talk about getting used to conditions but you’ve got to remember I’ve played a lot of cricket in England before, so the conditions aren’t really new to me. I’m just keen to play some cricket.”
Few Englishmen have difficulty remembering that he has played plenty of cricket here before – after 26 Ashes innings in England, and six centuries, his average is 65.08 – and in the circumstances it is no surprise he could not wait to get back. “It’s something I’ve never done and always wanted to do,” he said of county cricket. “The stars aligned in a way. We’re over here for the summer and it’s a good opportunity to play. I’m excited.”
Smith will play in Sussex’s next three games, starting on Thursday at Worcestershire. If the conditions are familiar his place in the batting order will not be; with Cheteshwar Pujara established at Smith’s preferred position of No 4 – the Australian will come in at five. “I haven’t been that low for a while, hopefully the boys can pile them on and I’ll come in on the back of them,” he said.
Stuart Broad fired the opening salvo in the traditional pre-Ashes war of words last week, suggesting of the series in Australia 18 months ago, when England battled intense Covid restrictions and were turned over 4-0, that he had “written it off as void”, an idea Smith declared “a little odd”.
“He’s a nice guy and loves throwing out some good banter, so it’s all part of it,” Smith said. “It certainly wasn’t ideal scenarios but we were in the middle of a pandemic. We were actually out there being able to do what we love so I don’t really have much more to add to it.”
England will return to Brian Lara’s home island of Trinidad for the first time in over 14 years on their pre-Christmas tour of the West Indies.
Queen’s Park Stadium in Port of Spain was once a regular stopping point on England’s Caribbean tours but has been absent from the schedule since 2009, and a pair of back-to-back T20s will instead be held 50km away in Tarouba on December 19 and 21.
The Brian Lara Academy has hosted just one previous international, a defeat by India last July, and will represent a new ground for the travelling fans.
The white-ball series comprises three ODIs and five T20s, with two matches apiece in Barbados, Antigua and Grenada completing the schedule.
Meanwhile, England’s forthcoming women’s white-ball series against Sri Lanka has been brought forward following a request from the tourists.
Sri Lanka asked the England and Wales Cricket Board to tweak the schedule owing to their participation in the Asian Games and the series will now run from 31 August to 14 September.
That means it will begin two days earlier than planned and finish five days ahead of the initial schedule. As a result of the changes there will no longer be a game at Canterbury, which had been allocated an ODI that now moves to Northampton.
This will be Smith’s fourth Ashes series in England and, having lost two and drawn in 2019, victory here would, he said, “be a huge one to tick off the bucket list”. England go into it brimming with optimism following their resurgence over the last year, but Smith said that he would not be tempted to emulate their aggressive style – “I’ll probably just play my game, I don’t think I’ll go into anything too rash” – and that they might struggle against Australia’s bowling attack.
“It’s going to be a challenge for them,” he said. “I don’t think they’re going to change the way they play. It’s going to be exciting. The aggressive brand they’ve played has been great to watch from afar but coming up against it, hopefully it doesn’t come off.”
There was some good news for England, meanwhile: it looks like Ollie Robinson – who, in an otherwise difficult series in 2021-22, dismissed Smith twice for 18 runs in 76 balls and is now a Sussex teammate – still has his number. “Ollie bowled to me yesterday,” Smith said. “I left one, third ball and he knocked me over, so that wasn’t ideal.”
