Steve Smith's Retirement: The Australian Legend Fought Till the End Before Making the Tough Decision to Move On

Ben Dwarshuis has played in four matches, while Nathan Ellis has featured in 11 matches. Cooper Connolly has participated in three matches, and Tanveer Sangha has also played in three matches.

This was the card Steve Smith was dealt with in Tuesday’s Champions Trophy semifinal. This was, minus Adam Zampa and Glenn Maxwell, the sum total of his bowling resources. It was this attack with which he had to try and defend 264 against a cracking Indian batting line-up full of dazzling stroke-makers, its depth evidenced by Ravindra Jadeja batting at No. 8.

Smith didn’t ask for this. Maybe he didn’t even want this – scratch that, he is cut from a different cloth – but this is what he had to make do with. The Australian captaincy had only come his way because Pat Cummins, the man who took them to the World Test Championship and 50-over World Cup titles in 2023, was missing, injured. As was Mitchell Marsh, the Twenty20 International skipper.

How the 35-year-old expertly pulled the strings, moved his bowlers around adroitly, kept funky yet imaginative and pressure-building fields and dragged out the match until the penultimate over was a great lesson in the art of captaincy. Of leadership. Of maximising what’s available rather than carping about what’s not.

That last sentence, come to think of it, is quintessential Smith. Few have made more of what they have, and as he rides away into the ODI sunset, it’s worth recalling that for all his quirks and eccentricities and unorthodoxy, he will go down as one of Australia’s greatest 50-overs batters. Not as intimidating as Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting, not as colourful and explosive as David Warner and Maxwell, not as elegant as Mark Waugh – who is?! – but effective beyond compare, efficient beyond imagination.

Also Read: Steve Smith holds Virat Kohli after Australia lose to India, keeps hand on his chest in rare post-match scenes

The bad news first – Smith will not play another 50-over international, having quietly announced his retirement after his team’s four-wicket loss to Rohit Sharma. The good news – he will still play Test cricket, he will still be available for T20Is. Which means he still has plenty to offer, and that’s hard to argue with, seeing as he has made four centuries in his last five Tests.

There is a compelling reason for Smith to bid adieu to ODI cricket as he seeks to extend his career. Test cricket is still what makes him spring out of bed and hit the gym and the nets each day; he averages 56.74 from 116 games, with 36 hundreds. After a long lull – he went 25 innings without a century before this latest gorgeous run – he has rediscovered his mojo and believes he has a few more good years in him.

He may not be an automatic choice in T20Is for long but he was a hit when he returned for the final stages of this year’s BBL and fancies a go at franchise cricket. The longer white-ball format – ah well, it is becoming a bit of a drag, without much context outside of global tournaments. To play in ICC events, one must play in bilateral tournaments. And the next ICC big-ticket competition isn’t until 2027 and the World Cup, ergo goodbye One-Day Internationals. Can’t argue with that logic, can we?

Steve Smith's only regret

One of Smith’s great regrets will be that he didn’t – couldn’t – captain his country in a World Cup. He was part of World Cup-winning outfits in 2015 (under Michael Clarke) and 2023 (with Cummins at the helm) and might have led in England in 2019 had it not been for the ban imposed on him by Cricket Australia for his part in the Sandpapergate episode in South Africa in 2018, when he was the all-format skipper. It’s a regret he has carried lightly; at the time, the angular, twitchy right-hander might have reconciled to never leading his country again, but circumstances changed to elevate him to that capacity from time to time and he has been grateful for the second chance.

Smith was an innovative, enterprising ODI batter with an uncanny knack of finding gaps and creating his own momentum. Without bashing the cover off the ball, he had a strike-rate of 86.96 which, coupled with an average of 43.28 from 170 outings, presents the picture of a stabilising hand at the till. The highest of his 12 hundreds was a monumental 164, which came when he was the captain of the team. Smith led Australia to victory in exactly half the matches (32) in which he led the side, and in those victories, he averaged 57.16. Absolutely gold.

In his final outing – as captain, as ODI batter – he made a polished 73 before falling to a Mohammed Shami full toss. He shook his head once, then again. A full toss! But that was forgotten long before he masterminded Australia’s spirited but eventually unsuccessful defence of a decent total. Not for lack of trying, though.

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