Steve Smith reveals that he was initially selected in the Australian team as a bowler

Steve Smith is arguably one of the best Test batsmen of this generation. He had a dream run in the Ashes 2019 against arch-rivals England where he amassed over 700 runs in the five matches that he played as Australia succeeded in retaining the 'Urn' on English soil for the first time since 2001. However, Smith has admitted that when he had first started his career for the national team, he was preferred as a bowler than a batsman.

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'Mixing & Matching': Steve Smith

During a recent chat with his Rajasthan Royals team-mate and New Zealand spinner Ish Sodhi on the official Facebook page of the 2008 champions, Smith said he was probably always more of a batsman than a bowler but was picked in certain teams as more of a bowler which was different. The number three batsman also mentioned that he had played his first two Test matches as a specialist spinner which was strange in a way.

The former Australian skipper then went on to add that the Australian team management looking for a spinner after the legendary Shane Ware era and they had also tried plenty of options at that time. A relieved Steve Smith also said that now they have got Nathan Lyon who is doing a terrific job but he (Smith) was one of the 12 or 13 spinners that they tried. The 2015 World Cup winner also revealed when he had got dropped from the team, he felt that he could find a way to the team only through his batting and therefore, he had let his bowling slip away a bit. 

Smith further added that before all these happened, he was mixing and matching between batting and bowling and working on both in a session in the nets after which it got to a point where if a session is of three hours in the nets, he would have been probably batted for two and a half hours.

Smith will be leading Rajasthan Royals in the IPL 2020 which was originally scheduled to kick off on March 29 but has now been tentatively postponed to April 15 due to the global pandemic.

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