Australia will give key batter Steve Smith as much time as possible to prove his fitness ahead of the third and final test against South Africa at Newlands, captain Pat Cummins said on Monday.<\/p>\n
Smith injured his neck in South Africa\u2019s innings and 31-run victory in the second test in Gqeberha which levelled the series at 1-1 going into the decider in Cape Town starting on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully, it all goes well and he\u2019ll be there,\u201d Cummins told reporters on Monday. \u201cBut we just want to wait for that last piece of the puzzle (before naming a team).<\/p>\n
Cummins said Cameron Green would bat \u201cpreferably in the middle order\u201d, which will likely mean Matt Renshaw opening with Travis Head after Nic Maddinson was dropped from the squad.<\/p>\n
For Smith, it would be a return to the scene of his darkest day after his role as captain in the \u201cSandpapergate\u201d scandal that rocked Australian cricket in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been awesome this tour,\u201d Cummins said. \u201cIn the last couple of years, probably particularly the last 12 months, it feels like he\u2019s in a really good place and he\u2019s enjoying his cricket.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s getting himself out (and about), whether it is playing golf or going for coffee club every morning. He\u2019s been super invested in what\u2019s going on and very helpful for me out in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith has averaged a little over 20 in four innings with the bat and took a blow to the head in the first test, before injuring his neck in the second.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe looks in total control of how he\u2019s going about his work. He\u2019s one of the greatest batters we\u2019ve ever had. You don\u2019t play 100 odd tests without matches where you\u2019re not 100% fit,\u201d Cummins said.<\/p>\n
Cummins was part of the side involved in the Sandpapergate scandal, though denies any knowledge of events, and another infamous test Australia played in Cape Town in 2011.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first ever test experience was here. I was running the drinks and we got bowled out for 47. So that was a wild introduction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21654,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-49166","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Smith injured his neck in South Africa\u2019s innings and 31-run victory in the second test in Gqeberha.","published_date":"","news_description":"Smith injured his neck in South Africa\u2019s innings and 31-run victory in the second test in Gqeberha.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49168,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49166\/revisions\/49168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=49166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}