George Bailey reveals how his advice to promote Steve Smith helped Australia in the 2015 World Cup

George Bailey played only a solitary game in the 2015 World Cup, but one of his decisions worked wonders for the Australia. The Tasmanian put forth the idea of promoting Steve Smith up the order as he felt that the latter had the potential to build an innings. Before the mega event, Smith used to bat in the lower middle-order and changing slots helped him and the Aussies.

Smith was Australia’s leading run-scorer with 402 runs in eight games at an average of 67 with one century and four half-centuries. Even in the final against New Zealand at the MCG, Smith turned up with 56 off 71, guiding his side to a seven-wicket victory. Bailey also felt that Mitchell Marsh could have been slotted down the order owing to his power-hitting potential.

I could see Steve Smith batting for 50 overs: Bailey

“My claim to fame, and no doubt he would have ended up there anyway, (but) we’d been using Steve Smith at six or seven in the one-day team and in Zimbabwe (the previous August-September) we threw Mitch Marsh up to three in a game,” Bailey was quoted as saying in The Unplayable Podcast.

“I made a suggestion that it should be Steve Smith (at three) because at that time Mitch could, and still can, bludgeon the ball, but I couldn’t see him batting for the full innings, where I could see ‘Smudger’ (Smith) batting for 50 overs, making those key hundreds that you could bat around,” he stated

“That recommendation was taken up and that played a huge part – Smudger was three right throughout the World Cup and hasn’t moved since,” Bailey added.

The only game Bailey played was the opener against England at the MCG itself. In that match at the iconic venue, Bailey notched 55 useful runs in the middle-order. However, the return of Michael Clarke from the hamstring injury meant that Bailey had to sacrifice his position as captain.

Smith is currently Australia’s batting stalwart across formats. Even as he is the ICC’s number-one ranked Test batsman, his numbers in the ODI and T20I format aren’t meek by any stretch of the imagination.