Aussies may turn to Smith’s leggies

STEVE Smith is trying to make the most of the spare time he has ahead of him, but will he use any of it to reinvest in his bowling?

The fallen Australian captain rolled the arm over in the Toronto Nationals’ loss to Edmonton yesterday as the Canada Global League road show rolled on. It was just one over, and the four dot balls he bowled were undone somewhat by being hammered for a six but, in his brief cameo, Smith found plenty of turn and some good areas in Toronto.

The sight of Smith with white ball in hand was a pleasant surprise. He hasn’t bowled in a T20 international since 2014, an ODI in more than two years and only sparingly in Test matches. This from a blond-haired kid who made his Australian debut as a leggie.

One theory is that Smith is such a perfectionist that he doesn’t want to risk failure by trying his hand at a discipline he doesn’t train enough at.

Another is that Smith, as a batsman, is such a masterful player of spin bowling himself that he might simply not rate his own bowling. Smith has far more important issues to process and work through over the next nine months, but before the ball-tampering scandal broke, there were already plenty of people in the know in Australian cricket who felt the team needed Smith to start backing himself with the ball again.

The Australian side has looked one-dimensional for some time, and many believe Smith could provide greater flexibility to the line-up by investing in becoming a successful part-time leggie again.

Smith won’t captain at any level of the game for at least two years. He has also spoken about how becoming trapped in the bubble of his own batting contributed in some way to the mental fog that undid him in South Africa. Will this prompt a change in outlook?

It’s certainly unusual to see Smith practising his bowling in the nets with Toronto a day out from the tournament starting, when that has almost exclusively not happened over the past few years for Australia. Though, it’s also true that it’s hard to read much into a quirky tournament like this.