Many Australians still have not forgiven the then-captain for turning a blind eye in the ball-tampering scandal during the 2018 South Africa tour but it is now time for him to captain the test team once again.
Smith is in career best form after demolishing the poms in the recent Ashes series but has not captained the Australian side since 2018 due to his role in the sand paper scandal but now that he has served his punishment he should take control of the team this summer with Paine as vice captain.
Tim Paine will always be remembered as the leader that the team needed to get through it’s toughest period but it is now time he hands over the role to concentrate on his own game and regain form with the bat.
The 34-year-old struggled to get himself on the scorers sheet during The Ashes and finished the series with an average of 20.00 which falls short of his career test average of 31.45.
Smith, on the otherhand, was in sublime form smashing 774 runs at an average of more than 110 which saw his him return to the number one spot on the ICC Test batting rankings despite a year out of the game.
Paine seemed to rely heavily on Smith during the Ashes campaign in England and rightly so when you have someone with great experience and knowledge for the game at your disposal.
When it comes to winning records when captaining the test team Smith has an impressive 52.94% win rate in comparrison to 35.71% that Paine currently holds.
That is obviously helped by the fact that while Smith was captain of the team he was also playing while Paine had to contend with the loss of Smith and Warner which would make any team struggle BUT with an extra twenty matches as captain under the belt you cannot deny that Smith has the upper-hand when it comes to knowledge when playing all over the world.
Smith also has the support of previous captains on his side with Ricky Ponting stating,
“I think he will captain again, I don’t know what the Australian public might think about that ut once that ban is lifted, I don’t think it will be too long until he’s captain again.”
The question left to be answered is whether Smith is willing to take the captaincy again.
“I am not really thinking about that at the moment.” was his response when asked recently.
“I am pretty chilled and relaxed where I am at; it’s not really on my radar, It’s just about focusing on what I need to control at the moment — that’s just keeping myself in a good space and scoring as many runs as I can, whether that be for New South Wales, Sutherland or Australia,” Smith said.
Whilst he didn’t confirm that he wanted the captaincy again, he didn’t say they he won’t captain the team again and there wouldn’t be a cricketer in the country that wouldn’t want that role.
Australain cricket fans won’t forget the courage and leadership that Paine showed while steering the team through the sandpaper controversy but for the good of the team (and Tim Paine) it is time that we forgive Steve Smith and reinstate him as the captain again.
