Steve Smith makes bold statement ahead of 1st Test at Perth, said Raring to go for….. News24 –
AUS vs ENG 1st Test: Australia and England gear themselves up for the Ashes 2025-26 series which begins tomorrow on November 21. The Australian side is unsettled and vulnerable before the 1st test match and there is a mainstream idea about the fact that at least from an outside perspective that England need to win in Perth to have any chance in the series.
Australian skipper Steve Smith has given the statement about how the Australian team thinks that Perth is “make or break” and the team clearly remembers losing in Perth last year to India, before proceeding to win the series 3-1.
Steve Smith’s statement ahead of 1st Test
“I think you want to try and win the first Test match and get yourself ahead of the game, I suppose, or the series,” Smith said on Thursday. “But I think either way we look at last summer, we lost the first Test match and we were able to claw the series back.
“We’ve got a lot of belief in that change room, if the result doesn’t go our way this week, that we can turn it around. We saw it last year. So ideally, we play well this week, and we’ve got potentially Patty on the table next game. Josh, I don’t know, but I think we’ll see how this week pans out.”
“It’s pretty standard,” Smith said. “I’ve been involved in a few now, and there’s always so many words said before the series. But for us, I think it’s about just ignoring the outside noise, concentrating on our processes, what we do well as a team and trusting and backing that throughout. It’s exciting that we’re starting tomorrow. Everyone’s been raring to go for the last few days of training and even before that.”
“I think it’s just playing the tempo of the game that needs to be played at each certain time,” Smith said. “I’ve no doubt throughout this series, there’s going to be periods of the game where a few of their batters get off and they score some runs quickly.
And for us, it might be about being a little bit defensive in those moments. And then finding the moments where we can attack a bit more and just playing the game, really, that’s in front of us, and not letting it drift too far before we implement the plans that need to be played at that certain time. I guess that’s as simple as I can put it right now.”
Squad For the 1st Test at Perth
England: Ben Stokes (c), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Harry Brook, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Mark Wood
Australia: Jake Weatherald, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith (c), Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Scott Boland, Brendan Doggett