The suspended Australian cricketer and former Australian captain Steven Smith is going to miss the remaining matches of the ongoing 2018 Caribbean Premier League (CPL 2018) due to the abdominal strain, but he seems perfectly on the line to return to the national squad once the suspension period gets over.
Everything was going fine for Smith as he was on the top form and top-ranked Test batsman, as well as his team, was also performing well. But the Cape Town Test in this March has changed his life totally.
During that Cape Town Test, Australian opening batsman Cameron Bancroft was red-handedly caught through the on-field video cameras when he tried to change the ball-condition with yellow sandpaper.
During the investigation process, it had been further revealed that the vice-captain David Warner was the mastermind of that programme while the skipper Steven Smith was totally aware of that incident.
While Smith and Warner stepped down from their respective leadership roles, Cricket Australia (CA) has imposed the one-year bans for Smith and Warner and nine months ban for Bancroft after completing their investigation.
Moreover, Smith and Bancroft will have to wait one more year to lead the Australian side while Warner will never lead the Australian side anymore.
After these tough periods, Smith is now focusing to restructure his cricketing career. While he can’t take participation for Australian national cricket team or any domestic cricket team at least for the suspended period, some big league tournament organisers and teams have decided to not allow them at least for the suspended period.
However, some recent tournaments have allowed them to participate – Global T20 Canada and Caribbean Premier Leagues are some of those. First Smith participated in the Global T20 Canada where he finished as the second leading run-scorer for his team Toronto Nationals (167 runs in six innings; average 33.40).
Then he participated in the ongoing CPL 2018 where he featured for Barbados Tridents before getting ruled out from the tournament. While the team is struggling, Smith performed much better with the bat as he scored 185 runs in seven innings with 26.42 averages. Moreover, the leg-spinner also picked up three wickets in this CPL season.
Despite lack of match practices for the recent long times, Smith is able to produce respectable performances with the bat that provides some value in the teams. If he improves his fitness soon, the experienced cricketer will not need much time to return to the Australian cricket team.
