Steve Smith may have a poor show in the recently-concluded Ashes series but former Australia captain Ricky Ponting said that it's only a matter of time when he will bounce back.
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Former Australia captain Steve Smith may have a poor show in the recently-concluded Ashes series but former Australia captain Ricky Ponting said that it’s only a matter of time when he will bounce back. However, Smith has scored only 244 runs which came at an average of 30.50.
“The standards that he’d set himself for so long, for that three – or four-year period where he took batting to another level, to try and maintain that for four or five or six years no-one’s ever done it, and no-one will probably ever do it,” Ricky Ponting told cricket.com.au. “You’re going to have your ups and downs and if he’s averaging (in the thirties) in Australia on the back of a couple of lean years, most other batsmen would take that.”
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Smith’s relatively lean returns in this series meant that his Test average went below 60 for the first time since 2017. Ponting said that Smith will analyse what has gone wrong and come up with solutions.
“I know what he’s like and he will look back at this even though Australia has won the series… he’ll look back at his own game and break it down and ask himself those questions as to why things haven’t worked out as much as he would have liked. He will come up with the right answers because the best players are the best problem solvers, and if he has got a problem… then he’ll work it out pretty quickly,” he again shared.
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Ricky Pontin, however, also stated that there are a number of batsmen within the team, like the recent top-ranked Test batsman Marnus Labuschagne, who has been doing well. However, it was often the case when Smith used to be in form where he scored most of the runs for Australia in an innings as well.
“The other interesting dynamic with (Smith) is the Marnus factor and even other guys that have come in and have dominated like he did. There are other guys that are helping out now. There’s lots of things that we can probably think about and ask questions about, but it’s not going to be long (before Smith bounces back),” Ricky Ponting concluded.
