Smith sets his sights on 2028 Olympics amid T20 ambitions

AAP

12-Jan-2025 • 1 hr ago

Steven Smith has set his sights on the 2028 Olympics, declaring he wants to prolong his short-form career and return to Australia’s T20 team for the Los Angeles Games.

Smith produced one of the finest T20 innings of his career on Saturday, smashing an unbeaten 121 from 64 balls for Sydney Sixers against Perth Scorchers to set up a BBL victory.

Australia’s former T20 captain hit seven sixes in his knock, manipulating Scorchers’ bowling and getting inventive in his efforts to target the short boundary.

Smith has become something of a forgotten force in T20 cricket in recent years, and even missed selection in Australia’s squad for last year’s T20 World Cup. He has also been overlooked in the past four IPL auctions, the only franchise cricket he played last year being for Washington in the USA’s Major League Cricket.

But Smith’s BBL form has regularly shown he is among the best T20 openers in the country, hitting three centuries in his last seven matches in the competition. The trio of tons brought him level with Ben McDermott for the most in tournament history, with Smith having played just 32 games to McDermott’s 100.

His average of 45.88 is the highest of any local, while he holds the sixth best strike-rate of any player with 146.3.

But Smith says he does not want to be a domestic-player only in the shortest format, eying off a return to Australian colours.

“I’d like to play the Olympics, I reckon that would be cool,” Smith said. “We’ll see how far I go in terms of long-form cricket. But I am going to play short-form cricket for a while I think when I do finish. You never know. There are a lot of good young kids who are smacking the ball out of the park.”

Smith will be 39 by the time cricket returns to the Olympics in 2028, with the sport featuring for the first time since 1900 when only Great Britain and France featured.

He has not yet outlined his retirement plans for red-ball cricket, but has made no secret of his desire to play T20s longer into the future.

Smith entered Saturday’s game with virtually no T20 preparation, with a 15-minute net before the BBL game his only hit against the white ball following the India Test series.

He has played solely as an opener in T20, with his record generally improving the longer a tournament goes on. And with the likely chance to focus solely on the 20-over format in years to come, Smith believes his game could improve further.

“I find the more I play back-to-back games you get in sync with the game,” Smith said. “Even [Saturday] I don’t think I played my first 10 balls really well. I was probably going a bit too hard for how the wicket was playing.

“But if I am playing T20s regularly, I probably come out with a slightly different mindset at the start, give myself a bit more time. It’s just the gears and going up and down in the gears throughout the innings [that change for T20s]. And just playing the percentages.”