Steve Waugh: Steven Smith is overburdened with responsibilities

Steve Waugh is impressed by the kind of work Steve Smith is doing with Australia despite being the captain in all three formats

Former Australian captain Steve Waugh shows his concern over current skipper Steven Smith who is leading the side across all formats. He fears burnout for Smith due to the weight of responsibilities he is carrying on his shoulders. He took up captaincy of Tests in 2014. Australia are currently involved in a Tri-Nation series with West Indies and South Africa. Waugh is a fan of Smith for his unorthodox batting style and his captaincy through all formats. He was the winning captain in 2015 World Cup hosted by Australia and New Zealand. Under his captaincy Australia are currently on No.1 spot in Tests. The only bump in the road was T20 World Cup 2017 when they were knocked out by India, thanks to Virat Kohli’s scintillating knock. ALSO READ: ICC Cricket World Cup 1999 semi-final: Australia, South Africa play greatest ODI ever?

But Waugh considers his record flawless as he told cricket.com.au , “I don’t think he’s made too many mistakes since he’s taken over the captaincy, it’s been a huge learning curve but he also has the challenge of captaining three different forms of the game, which very few captains do these days. ALSO READ: World Cup 1999: Herschelle Gibbs drops the Cup

“Admittedly, the only question mark is mentally how much the last six months has taken (out of him), I think (the demands can) become mentally draining because of the challenges associated with (captaining three national teams) where you have three different groups of players coming in-and-out of the teams. So, you need good people around you, you need good support from the coaches and from senior players. However, from what I’ve seen Steve seems to be handling the pressures very well.”

Smith has expressed his discomfort over playing Ashes series (Day-Night) which is to be played with pink ball. He has raised questions about the quality of the pink ball. Waugh encourages Smith to not pay any heed to these matters and focus on the game.

Waugh commented on Smith’s fear on playing with pink ball as he said, “When you play, you get caught up with what’s going on … it might be the ball you’re using or whether it is playing in a day-night Test. But when you finish up you go. It probably doesn’t really matter all that much because the best team is still going to win. If you have the skills and you are mentally tough you’re going to do well in any conditions.”

Waugh captained Australia for a long period of time. Under his captaincy, Australia won 41 out of 57 Tests. He had a good record in ODIs as well winning it for Australia in 1999. He complimented Smith for all the burden he is handling. He said, “I didn’t have (to worry about) three forms, I had the two and the captaincy was taken away from me for the one-day stuff for the last couple of years, it’s all-encompassing and there’s a lot expected of you; you have to do things like front the media, and I think I did more media than the captains who came after me … they tend to share the workload (among the players) with the press and that’s a good thing.”

Waugh talked about how he used to rejuvenate himself. He added “For me it was getting away up the coast to our holiday place and doing some fishing for a couple of days and getting away from the phone and the technology. That’s the hardest thing these days, you need an escape where you can fish, read a book, watch a movie to get away from cricket and recharge the batteries.”