{"id":40996,"date":"2025-08-03T19:08:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T19:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/40996\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T19:08:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T19:08:06","slug":"steve-smith-australia-batter-relishing-hundred-experience-with-welsh-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/40996\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Smith: Australia batter relishing Hundred experience with Welsh Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Smith will also link up at Welsh Fire with England batter Jonny Bairstow, who is looking to return to the international one-day set-up.<\/p>\n

“He is a class player, particularly with the white ball. He smacks it around the park,” said Smith.<\/p>\n

“I saw recently he said he wants to get back into the England white ball set-up, so I am sure he has a bit of a point to prove. <\/p>\n

“He is going to come out nice and aggressively and I am looking forward to spending some time in the middle with him.”<\/p>\n

Smith has his own international ambitions as he looks to make the Australia T20 team for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.<\/p>\n

He has already experienced cricket in the United States of America. He has a close relationship with Washington Freedom owner Sanjay Govil, who has bought a 50% stake<\/a> in Welsh Fire.<\/p>\n

Freedom won the second season of Major League Cricket (MLC) with Smith as skipper and Ricky Ponting as coach.<\/p>\n

“It is great for the game there are so many tournaments around the world as we try to grow the game,” said Smith.<\/p>\n

“I have played in the MLC in the USA, which is a market that has been untapped for a long time and that was good fun.<\/p>\n

“Having the opportunity to go and play in different places around the world is cool and see how different people prepare and it no different with Welsh Fire.<\/p>\n

“I am looking forward to seeing how Jonny Bairstow goes about his business and what makes Tom Abell tick and how they train and play.<\/p>\n

“That is one of the reasons I like playing in these tournaments so much.”<\/p>\n

Follow the Hundred 2025 with double-headers on BBC TV and iPlayer every Tuesday and Saturday, commentary on every match on BBC Sounds and live text updates on the BBC Sport website and app.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Smith will also link up at Welsh Fire with England batter Jonny Bairstow, who is looking to return…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-40996","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\/40996","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=40996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}