Steve Smith criticises summer scheduling which will force him to miss T20 series against Sri Lanka

Australian captain Steven Smith is not happy with the long and hectic summer schedule which will force him to miss the upcoming T20 series against Sri Lanka beginning in Melbourne on February 17. The final T20 will be played at Adelaide on February 22 which will clash with the Test series in India starting from February 23 in Pune. Australia who had a horrendous run in subcontinental conditions off late is likely to assemble in India early February to get used to the conditions and seek to gain revenge from their 4-0 battering in 2013.

Smith has already confirmed his unavailability from the T20 series and the likes of David Warner and Mitchell Starc will also miss the series in all likelihood. “I don’t think it’s ideal,” Smith was quoted as saying by the ABC Grandstand.

“I think the Australian public would love to see the best Australian team on the park for every game. It’s difficult to do that with the schedule and how much we play.”

Cricket Australia (CA) high-performance manager Pat Howard has previously suggested the Aussies should embrace the prospect of two teams playing together almost simultaneously. “We’ve done better and performed better when players have really lavished the opportunity, versus it being tacked on at the end of a long season,” he said in October.

“So there is a way to have a think about this differently to give us a better chance of winning,” Howard had said in October. With cricket being played across every format throughout the year, it becomes extremely tricky for the team management to manage the workload of the players. During their recent ODI series in South Africa, they decided to rest Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc and ended up getting whitewashed 5-0 at the hands of the Proteas.

“Had they been there, things could have been slightly different,” Smith said.

“We look now and see how well they’re bowling, and (considering) how much cricket they’ve had to play over the summer, it was probably the right decision to have rested them and made sure they were fit for the summer.”

Smith wasn’t really bothered at who will lead the T20 side in his absence as long as it got the best out of the players. Following Australia’s premature exit from the World T20 in India earlier in the year, Smith has set his vision for the 2018 World T20.

“In T20 cricket, we play games on and off, here and there,” he said.

“For me, the most important thing is that we win major tournaments in that format of the game, and that’s the World Cup,” the Australia captain concluded.