Steve Smith supported young guns Sam Konstas and Cameron Green to find their feet in the Caribbean, with Australia bathing expected to return to the West Indies in the second trial after putting his injured finger to the test in an unusual setting.
The former captain missed Australia’s 159-run success in the first test against the West Indies after a finger was injured when avoiding a catch on the final test of the World Test in South Africa.
Smith still had to prove his fitness after suffering a compound dislocation of a finger at Lord’s but on the track slot straight back to No 4 place with Australia’s leading order under the siege.
Firebrand opener Konstas returned to Test XI with 3 and 5 marks against the West Indies, while Green was held at No 3 areas in the Marnus Labuschagne area but followed a small return to the WTC Final with 3 and 15 on a spicy deck in Bridgetown.
“Sometimes you have to grind it with wickets and try and see as good balls as possible,” Smith said. “But then when you get any loose, you have to try and climb here.
“There’s a lot of talk around it, but they’re good players and we just have to give them a chance. It doesn’t always go around right away. It can take some time.”
Smith retreated to New York between the WTC Final and the start of the Australian tour of the Caribbean to continue his recovery from a stunning finger injury while watching the first trial from afar.
The right hand removed the stitches from his broken finger but it still had a splint that he would bathe if he was selected for the second test at St George’s in Grenada.
Smith found a novel way to test his finger in Manhattan but would return to the more familiar periphery as he bathed the nets the day before the second trial starts Wednesday at the local time if “just find a little rhythm”.
“I found a baseball cage,” Smith said of his stay in the US. “My husband really told me about it, which was fine, because it was pretty hot there, it was like 36C. Up to the 71st and the western part of the highway under this bridge, there was a batting cage, and he was able to throw me some balls there.
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“It was nice to hit some balls, all it felt. I was filming. It sent it back to the medical staff and they were pretty happy with some of the shots I played.
“I wouldn’t have to feel that finger with a splint to touch the bat. But the lucky part is, most batters take off those fingers to play a lot of shots, I’m probably keeping mine for most of them to be a player under the hand.”
While Smith is confident that he will be able to enter the West Indies Pace Attack, the 36-year-old will move outside the Cordon slips to field in the middle of off or mid, or more on the fine foot.
“I would practice as normal and then field a few balls in front of the wicket, which is probably the strange thing for me,” Smith said. “I never thought I had done that in a test match.”
