Legendary Australian cricket captain Mark Taylor says the time is right for Steve Smith to be brought in from leadership exile and lead the Test team against England in this summer’s Ashes.
And Taylor says it’s a race in two to replace injured Tim Paine behind the stumps following revelations this week the skipper may miss the entire summer.
Paine will undergo surgery to fix a bulging disc in his spine and he will be racing the clock to take part in the five-Test series against England, which is slated to begin on December 8, although COVID-19 threatens to derail those plans.
The absence of Paine will leave Australia without a wicketkeeper and without a captain, and the Cricket Australia selection panel must decide who fills those boots.
The captaincy appears to be Pat Cummins’ to lose, given he’s been the understudy for some time now. But Taylor believes Smith should be considered, too.
Smith captained the Test team until the infamous 2018 ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town, which earned he and David Warner selection bans and pushed them out of the leadership equation.
Warner will never be given a leadership role again. Smith is technically now allowed to do the job, but some believe his cards have been marked in terms of captaining the country’s favourite team again.
In March, Smith revealed his desire to return to the captaincy for the first time in an interview.
“I guess now I’ve got to a point where if the opportunity (to captain) did come up again I would be keen,” Smith told News Corp at the time.
Now, he has Taylor’s support.
“I wouldn’t rule out Steve Smith to come back and captain Australia. I think enough time, enough water has gone under the bridge since 2018 and what happened in South Africa,” Taylor told Wide World of Sports.
“Pat Cummins would certainly be in the pole position given he’s the vice captain at the moment.
“I think Australia have options. I was absolutely surprised about the Tim Paine news.”
What looms as an even tougher decision for selectors is who takes up Paine’s gloves to keep wicket against the Poms.
Matthew Wade has most recently been in the Test team as a specialist batsman, opening in the first two Tests against India last summer and then bumped down the order to accommodate David Warner and Will Pucovski.
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Wade has kept for Australia previously but there are better glovemen in the country, hence why he now plays as a batsman alone.
Alex Carey has been spoken of as a potential future Test captain despite the fact he’s yet to earn a baggy green, although he was recently a surprise snubbing when the Twenty20 World Cup squad was named.
Carey has been ousted from the national white-ball fold by younger keeper-batsmen Josh Inglis and Josh Philippe.
Taylor doesn’t see those two as candidates to play Test cricket any time soon. He thinks the job is a race between Wade and Carey.
“I think for Test matches not at this stage (Inglis and Philippe are no chance), no,” he said.
“I don’t think they have done enough for their respective states. They may have done some good stuff in Big Bash and that white ball form of the game, but I think both those guys would need to show me they’re tried and true first-class performers before I pick them for a Test match.
“I think at this stage the running is certainly between Carey and Wade should Paine not play.”
The Ashes are slated to kick off at The Gabba on December 8.
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