Steve Smith plots return for second West Indies Test after baseball cage hitout

The Guardian

a day ago

Steve Smith has backed young guns Sam Konstas and Cameron Green to find their feet in the Caribbean, with the Australia batting great expecting to return to face West Indies in the second Test after putting his injured finger to the test in an unusual setting.
The former captain missed Australia's 159-run victory in the first Test against West Indies after injuring a finger when spilling a catch in the World Test Championship final defeat to South Africa.
Smith still needs to prove his fitness after suffering a compound dislocation of a finger at Lord's but is on track to slot straight back into the No 4 spot with Australia's top order under siege.
Firebrand opener Konstas returned to the Test XI with scores of 3 and 5 against West Indies, while Green held onto the No 3 spot in place of Marnus Labuschagne but followed up a meagre return in the WTC final with 3 and 15 on a spicy deck in Bridgetown.
'Sometimes you've got to grind it out on those wickets and try and see out the good balls as much as possible,' Smith said. 'But then when you get anything loose, you've got to try and climb into it.
'There has been a lot of talk around it, but they're good players and we just need to give them an opportunity. It doesn't always come round straight away. It can take some time.'
Smith retreated to New York between the WTC final and the start of Australia's tour of the Caribbean to continue his recovery from a gruesome finger injury while watching the first Test from afar.
The right-hander has had the stitches removed from his damaged finger but still has it in a splint that he will bat with if selected for the second Test at St George's in Grenada.
Smith found a novel way to test his finger in Manhattan but will be back in more familiar surroundings as he bats in the nets on the day before the second Test begins on Wednesday local time if only to 'find a bit of rhythm'.
'I found a baseball cage,' Smith said of his stay in the US. 'My mate actually told me about it, which was ideal, because it was pretty warm there, it was like 36C. Up on 71st and the West Side Highway underneath this bridge, there was a batting cage, and he was able to throw me a few balls there.
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'It was nice to hit a few balls, everything felt good. I videoed it, sent it back to the medical staff and they were pretty happy with some of the shots I played.
'I won't have the feeling in that finger with the splint touching the bat. But the fortunate part is, most batters take those fingers off the bat to play a lot of their shots, I probably keep mine on for most of them being a bottom-hand player.'
While Smith is confident he will be able to take on the West Indies pace attack, the 36-year-old will be shifted out of the slips cordon to field at mid-off or mid-on, or further away at fine leg.
'I'll be training as normal and then fielding some balls in front of the wicket, which would probably be the strangest thing for me,' Smith said. 'I don't think I've ever done that in a Test match.'