Sydney, Mar 31 (UNI) As Steve Smith's two-year leadership ban ends, current Australia
Test skipper Tim Paine said that he would support the younger man's return to captaincy.
Cricket Australia had imposed a two-year captaincy ban on Steve Smith for his role in
the ball-tampering incident in South Africa in 2018. The suspension ended on March 29,
making Smith eligible for the role once again.
Paine, who will turn 36 next year, admitted that while he hasn't had a serious chat about
captaincy with any of the players, he would be happy to endorse Smith.
"I haven't had that conversation with Smithy (Steve Smith), I probably will at some stage
no doubt but I think that he's back captaining the Indian Premier League's Rajasthan
Royals and captaining in (English competition) The Hundred, it's something that he loves
doing," Paine said.
"If Steve Smith decides that's the way he wants to go then I'd fully support him in trying
to again," he said.
Australia's next Test assignment is scheduled for June – a two-Test series against
Bangladesh. However, with the current global crisis still prevalent, Paine acknowledged
that the series is likely to be postponed or cancelled, an ICC report on Tuesday said.
"You don't have to be Einstein to realise that it's probably unlikely, particularly in June.
Whether it's cancelled completely or it's pushed back we're not quite sure at the moment,"
Paine said.
"I think all players would be in favour of trying to finish that anyway we can (but) if it
doesn't happen, there are bigger issues in the world and missing a few Test matches
isn't going to hurt us," he added.
In case the Bangladesh series is cancelled, Australia will lose a golden opportunity to
surpass India on the World Test Championship (WTC) table. Paine hopes that the
rescheduled series don't put too much pressure on the players in their bid to win the
WTC trophy.
"Some series have been cancelled and whether ones going forward are going to be
continually cancelled or we're going to postpone them [is uncertain]. Maybe the players
are going to have to go through a period where we play quite a bit of cricket if we want
to complete the Test Championship as it is," said Paine.
"Our team has got some goals, one of those is the ICC Test Championship final and
winning that," he added. "I haven't looked any further than that."
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