Australia batter Steve Smith said about his return to No.4, which was recently finalized by the captain-coach duo of Pat Cummins and Andrew McDonald before the Border-Gavaskar series as well. However, Smith had a brief stint as an opener following David Warner’s retirement at the start of the year where he had played two series as an opener alongside Usman Khawaja but found little success. He scored a fifty in the loss to the West Indies at The Gabba but struggled against the new ball during the tour of New Zealand as well.

“Obviously there’s a spot there now with Greeny [Cameron Green] out. And I think just conversations we had after New Zealand with particularly Marnus and Uzi, they hated me up top, to be honest. They wanted me behind them,” Smith told ESPN Cricinfo.”They just like the…they call it security behind them, in a way. They were pretty strong on me not batting there. So that was a big part of it. And then obviously, I’ve got a decent record at four,” he added.

“I got asked where I’d prefer to bat, and I said four. I didn’t ask [to move] though,” Smith said. “I also said I’m happy batting wherever. I’m not really too fussed. I got asked where my preference would be, and I said four. I saw a few things last week saying that I’ve requested to bat at four. That wasn’t the case. I said I’m happy to bat wherever you’d like me to bat but, yeah, four would be my ideal position,” Smith again said.

However, Steve Smith is playing in the Sheffield Shield for New South Wales in their ongoing clash against Victoria. He was dismissed by Fergus O’Neill for three runs while coming out to bat at No.3 as well.

“I actually felt pretty good out there, to be honest, for the three that I scored strangely enough,” Smith said. “I felt like I was moving well. I was leaving well, and got a little bit unlucky with the one that sort of took off a little bit down the leg side. And that can happen. But I actually felt like I was getting in nice positions. My bat path was good and felt pretty good. So happy with that,” he stated.

“He’s someone who probably hasn’t been spoken about a great deal from all you guys in the last little bit, but I think he’s someone that could definitely play test cricket and have a similar impact to what Davey sort of had at the top, the way he plays. So plenty of options. We’ll wait and see,” Steve Smith concluded.