![\"Mitchell](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/9312249595b9c6d66064d53fade862ddfda6ac6c.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nAbbott was diplomatic in assessing England\u2019s preparations before the NSW-Victoria clash, but was more than happy with Australia\u2019s round of red-ball clashes leading into the most anticipated Ashes series in decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t really match game intensity, as much as we try to in the nets,\u201d Abbott, a regular 12th man and tourist in the West Indies and Sri Lanka of late, said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mitchell Starc will make a rare appearance in the NSW Sheffield Shield side alongside a host of Test stars.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just something about being out there in the middle and the thick of the contest. So, we\u2019re pretty lucky [to have] home conditions in a home summer. We get to play a game this week against a pretty good team in Victoria. There\u2019s obviously been a lot of chat about it, and it\u2019s good to see most Shield teams pretty well at full strength.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if England risk being underdone in Perth conditions, Abbott said: \u201cI certainly won\u2019t be putting up my hand to face the [Test bowlers] in the nets next week, but I think a fair few of the English lads are over there now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll have a pretty good lead-in, and I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll leave no stone unturned to be prepped to bat in those conditions, because they are unique and that\u2019s what we love about going over and playing in Perth. It offers up something different compared to the rest of the world and the rest of Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Smith takes over the NSW captaincy from recent Australia A debutant Jack Edwards with an eye to marshalling the Blues Test speedsters in preparation for the first Test.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old has happily pointed out his stunning Test average of 68 as skipper, but Abbott said Smith\u2019s tactics and intuition have proven just as valuable having played alongside him for more than a decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe captains on instinct,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cHe\u2019ll just get a feel that something\u2019s going to happen, and you\u2019ll ask him why. He\u2019s like, \u2018I don\u2019t really know. I just feel that this is going to go this way\u2019, and he\u2019ll move something or change something and it\u2019ll pay off.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt basically happens every game. So that\u2019s what I really like about Steve. He doesn\u2019t second-guess his decision-making.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abbott was diplomatic in assessing England\u2019s preparations before the NSW-Victoria clash, but was more than happy with Australia\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-274912","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\/274912","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=274912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}