{"id":892231,"date":"2026-09-14T23:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T23:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/892231\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T23:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T23:46:12","slug":"cricket-news-2026-steve-smith-may-retire-before-ashes-2027-australia-test-team-t20-and-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/892231\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket news 2026, Steve Smith may retire before Ashes 2027, Australia Test team, T20 and Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Smith<\/a> says he might not make it to next year\u2019s Ashes<\/a> series as the Aussie cricket<\/a> superstar moves his focus to the shortest format of the game.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old is arguably the best batter Australia has produced since Ricky Ponting<\/a>, and he is still the best currently available for selection in the men\u2019s Test team.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Steve Smith celebrates his hundred at the SCG.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

He boasts an astonishing average of 56.00 from 125 matches and is fourth on Australia\u2019s all-time Test runs list. He is eight runs away from jumping above Steve Waugh<\/a> \u2013 who played 168 matches \u2013 into third spot.<\/p>\n

But Smith has been coy on his future in Test cricket for several years, with speculation about his retirement a common talking point in the sport.<\/p>\n

And in a fresh interview with the UK Telegraph, the Sydneysider admitted he may decide to hang up the whites before Australia\u2019s series in England in the middle of next year.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s despite the fact Smith has never won a Test series in England, and it is thought to be a major driving factor for several of Australia\u2019s ageing stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t even know if I\u2019ll be there yet,\u201d Smith told the Telegraph.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m kind of a series-by-series proposition, as I\u2019ve been for a while, and that\u2019s still a fair way away for me right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, yeah, I\u2019d love to win (a series) there or to have won one there, but you wait and see if that comes to fruition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of fun. I\u2019m still enjoying it, so I don\u2019t have an end date, we\u2019ll wait and see. But it\u2019s been a good ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

While players like Aussie fast bowler Mitchell Starc are bucking the trend to focus their energy on Test cricket, others are increasingly chasing the riches on offer in Twenty20.<\/p>\n

While Smith isn\u2019t necessarily driven by money, he admits his focus is now on T20 more than red-ball cricket as he pushes for selection at the 2028 LA Olympics.<\/p>\n

He will be 39 years old by that stage and no guarantee to still be in Australia\u2019s best T20 team. He is currently in Dublin playing for the Amsterdam Flames in the European T20 Premier League, trying to get as much T20 in as he can.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Steve Smith meeting fans in Darwin.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now probably it\u2019s just the Olympics, to try to be a part of that,\u201d Smith said of his remaining goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons why I wanted to play with Amsterdam here was just to continue playing as much T20 cricket as I can.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was keen immediately to come and play in a new market and, hopefully, share some experiences with the local players and associate players: share a dressing room with them and try to impart some of my knowledge on to them. It\u2019s been really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s next Aussie assignment will be with the Test team when it takes on South Africa next month.<\/p>\n

It will be the first time Smith, and the team, has been back to South Africa since the infamous 2018 ball tampering scandal that resulted in bans for then-captain Smith, David Warner, and Cameron Bancroft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Smith says he might not make it to next year\u2019s Ashes series as the Aussie cricket superstar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":892232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-892231","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\/892231","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=892231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/892232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}