![\"Steve](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/dff6ab128e7da589a21b619d89c4a46c64eb1ed0.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019ve got pretty much two weeks before my first game, which is probably too much these days,\u201d Smith said. \u201cHonestly, it takes me two hits to get sorted. I feel like I\u2019m ready to go now.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Steve Smith in action in the nets. Credit: Sam Mooy<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had three hits since I\u2019ve been back. Everything feels good. I\u2019ve been training quite hard, been doing a lot of lifting, trying to get a bit stronger. I did all my strength tests yesterday, and they\u2019re all as good as they\u2019ve ever been.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I certainly get drained mentally quicker than I probably used to. Ten years ago, I loved to come back and play every single game that I could.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that when I play a lot at the start, by the end of the summer I\u2019m pretty cooked mentally and probably can\u2019t produce the same performances as I suppose I did last summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith praised Marnus Labuschagne\u2019s resurgence, saying he\u2019d mounted a compelling case to feature in the first Test. Labuschagne has scored four centuries this season for Queensland across all formats.<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty big statement,\u201d Smith said. \u201cHe said to me at the start of the summer, \u2018I\u2019ll be in that Test team come the first Test\u2019. He\u2019s backed up his words.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s obviously not selected yet, but he\u2019s done a lot of things right. He can open, as we saw in the World Test Championship final, but he can bat three. He\u2019s versatile.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always tough when you get dropped. I think he knew he probably wasn\u2019t batting as well as he had. My advice to him was to stop thinking so technically, just go and play the game, watch the ball, and react. I think he\u2019s been doing that really beautifully.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully, he\u2019s used up all these runs for a few weeks, [and] can have a lean trot next week [when NSW play Queensland] and then get back into it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked where he thought Green\u2019s best position in the Test order was, Smith said: \u201cI think he can bat anywhere, as he showed in the West Indies. I thought he batted really nicely at three. He\u2019s got a really good technique, good temperament. The beauty with our line-up, I think everyone can slot in at different spots and be versatile.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith said he was excited by the chance to captain Australia again.<\/p>\n
\u201cPat\u2019s still got a few things that he can tick off,\u201d Smith said. \u201cYou never know. He\u2019s a healer. He gets well quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve stood in a couple of times over the last few years. It\u2019s nothing out of the ordinary. If it happens, I\u2019ll look forward to it. It\u2019s been a seamless transaction.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019ve got pretty much two weeks before my first game, which is probably too much these days,\u201d Smith…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-228815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}