Steve Smith has spent a career bending time to his will at the crease. Now, as he edges towards 38, he’s refusing to look too far ahead.
Australia’s modern batting great has made no promise he will be in England for the next Ashes, choosing instead to treat his Test career like a series of short sprints rather than one last marathon.
“I don't even know if I’ll be there yet,” Smith told The Telegraph. “I'm in kind of a series-by-series proposition, as I’ve been for a while, and that’s still a fair way away for me right now.”
For a player who has dominated Ashes cricket like few others, the idea that he might walk away without an away series win in England jars with the narrative. Smith knows it too.
“I’d love to win one there or to have won one there,” he said. “But you wait and see if that comes to fruition.”
Australia, though, do not have the luxury of thinking only about the romance of an English summer. A brutal stretch of Test cricket is coming: South Africa away, India away, then England. It is the sort of schedule that defines eras and shortens careers.
For Smith, the immediate focus is South Africa, and a return to a country that still carries heavy baggage for Australian cricket.
Back to South Africa, without the baggage
The three-Test series will be Smith’s first red-ball appearance in South Africa since the 2018 ball-tampering scandal, the episode that cost him the captaincy and threatened to stain his legacy permanently.
He is in no mood to relive it.
“For me, it’s just another series,” Smith said. “All that happened a long time ago, and we’ve played a lot of cricket and have been back to South Africa since then for one-dayers.”
There is respect, though, and a clear sense of unfinished business on the field. South Africa beat Australia in the World Test Championship final and boast a fast-bowling unit capable of unsettling any batting order.
“They’re a good side at the moment, obviously beat us in the World Test Championship final,” Smith said. “They have a really good pace attack as well, so should be a cracker of a series.”
It is the sort of challenge that still sharpens his instincts. You can hear it in the way he talks about conditions, about movement, about problem-solving. The mind of the run machine is still whirring.
No end date, new horizons
If the Test calendar feels uncertain for Smith, his wider cricketing life does not. Retirement from the game altogether is nowhere near his thoughts.
He wants more T20. More travel. And, strikingly for a player who debuted in Test whites 15 years ago, a shot at the Olympic Games.
“Right now probably it’s just the Olympics to try to be a part of that,” he said, with the 2028 Los Angeles Games on his radar as cricket’s next global stage.
That ambition helped drive his decision to sign for Amsterdam in the European T20 Premier League.
“One of the reasons why I wanted to play with Amsterdam was just to continue playing as much T20 cricket as I can.”
He refuses to circle a date on the calendar and call it the end. Enjoyment, not age, is his guiding metric.
“I still like to think I could play T20 cricket for a while,” Smith said. “What’s next for me when I finish? I’m not sure, but yeah, hopefully a bit more time left playing.
“I've achieved a lot in the game. It’s been a great ride for the last 15 years or thereabouts. I’ve had a lot of fun. I’m still enjoying it, so I don’t have an end date, we’ll wait and see. But it’s been a good ride.”
Numbers still back the instinct
Plenty of great players talk about “going series by series” as they fade. Smith’s numbers say he is not in that bracket yet.
On increasingly spiteful Test pitches, with seamers finding extravagant movement and curators under pressure to produce results, he still averages 49.4 over the last two years. His Test century tally has climbed to 37. The method has evolved, the output remains elite.
“I feel like I’m batting really nicely,” he said. “I’ve found different ways to go about things on these tricky surfaces and still be able to score runs.”
He still wants to be in the thick of it: runs, catches, and the quieter leadership role that has grown around him since his return from suspension.
“So trying to contribute as well as I can for the team, score runs, take catches, help out in leadership areas where I need to. It’s been a good, fun couple of years.”
That last line is telling. For all the scrutiny, all the drama, Smith sounds content. Not done. Not coasting. Just content.
The Ashes question will hang in the air until he answers it with either a squad announcement or a silence that speaks for itself. Between now and then lies South Africa, India, and the chance to stretch a remarkable career just a little further.
If this is the final act, he is in no rush to bring down the curtain.
