Former Australian head coach Justin Langer wants Steve Smith to return to his original position of number four in the batting line-up. After David Warner’s retirement, Smith has opened the innings along with Usman Khawaja. Smith has scored 171 runs in four Test matches at an average of 28.50 while playing against the West Indies and New Zealand.
Meanwhile, Smith has a fantastic record while batting at number four, scoring 5966 runs in 67 Test matches with an impressive average of 61.50, including 19 centuries.
“He’s the greatest player we’ve had. Great players adapt, they can bat anywhere in the order. For the Australian cricket team, I think he’s best suited to bat number four,” Langer said on the Cricket Et Al podcast.
“I think it’s a really specialised position,” Langer said of batting at No.4. It’s not that he can’t do it [open the batting]. I’d love to see him bat at No.4, but then they have to work out who doesn’t play. My observation was that it was more about trying to get Cameron Green in and Mitch Marsh had taken that [all-rounders’] role, but they wanted to get the best young player into the XI,” he added.
On the other hand, Smith is open to bat anywhere for the team in the Border-Gavaskar series against India. Smith is definitely going to hold the key for Australia and it will be interesting to note where he bats for the hosts.
“We’ll see what that looks like … whether they want me to continue [opening the batting] or go back to three or four. We’ll wait and see. I’m pretty easy batting anywhere,” Smith said at the recent Cricket Australia content capture.
The opening Test match between India and Australia will be played at Perth from November 22 onwards.
