Steve Smith faces one of the toughest challenges of his career in Pakistan as he tries to break a form slump in foreign conditions with just a few days preparation after recovering from a nasty concussion.
The Australian team had their first training session at Rawalpindi on Tuesday to prepare for Friday’s first Test and Smith, renowned as one of world cricket’s biggest practice junkies, is looking to cram in as much time in the nets as possible.
He has been restricted in his training for the past two weeks since suffering a concussion while fielding for Australia at the SCG in the T20 series against Sri Lanka.
Smith is coming off a modest Ashes campaign by his own record-breaking standards, 244 runs at 30.5 with a top score of 93 in Adelaide, and has only scored one century in his past 15 Tests stretching back to the 2019 tour of England.
“It’s obviously my first time playing here so getting accustomed to the conditions is really important, having the ability to adapt to whatever we face out in the middle,” Smith said.
“I’m looking forward to training today, it’s the first session back for me facing fast bowling.
“The head’s progressed really well the last few days, I’m feeling in a good space.
“I’m hitting the ball nicely so no concerns from me [about a lack of centuries]. I’ll just go about my business as usual, hopefully hit a lot of balls the next few days and find a nice rhythm going into the first Test on Friday.”
Unlike most Test batters, Smith still manages to thrive away from home, averaging 57.1 with 13 tons in 39 matches outside Australia so if anyone can break their slump in their first match in a country, the 32-year-old vice-captain is a strong candidate for the difficult task.
Australia have not toured Pakistan since 1998 – Smith coincidentally made his Test debut against them in 2010 in a two-match series in England.
“It has been an odd couple of years, this is our first away tour since the Ashes in 2019 which is hard to fathom but we’re excited to be playing some cricket away and challenging ourselves in foreign conditions – that’s something I certainly pride myself on, is my performance away from home.
“The last away tour I performed really well in the Ashes and hopefully I can replicate something similar in this series.
“I love playing on different surfaces and all the different challenges on playing cricket in places all around the world. They all have different aspects to them, whether you’re playing in England on wickets that seam, playing in the subcontinent on spinning wickets or what have you.
“The summer was pretty tough in terms of wickets. The wickets had a fair amount of grass and there was a fair amount of seam movement in a lot of them.”
There have been wildly fluctuating reports about what kind of pitch the Australians are likely to confront for the series opener and Smith said they will have to “adapt quickly on the go” to whatever circumstances they find.
“The next few days will be good, being able to have a hit on the surfaces. I don’t know whether they’re going to replicate what we’re going to get out in the middle, we’ll wait and see,” he said.
“I’m just excited to be here in Pakistan and bringing Test cricket back here as an Australian team.”
Pakistan are ranked fifth on the ICC Test rankings with Australia on top but Smith said the hosts had an extremely talented team. Players like middle-order batter Babar Azam and left-arm paceman Shaheen Afridi are more than capable of turning a match on their own.
In the five matches they have hosted since Test cricket returned to Pakistan in 2019, they have won four times with one rain-interrupted game drawn with Sri Lanka.
Smith said the Australians would not finalise their XI until close to game day after they had fully inspected the wicket. They have the option of bringing Mitchell Swepson or Ashton Agar into the side as a second spinner which could mean Scott Boland, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood could each be in danger of missing out.