Steve Smith's Uncertain Future: Ashes and Olympic Dreams
Steve Smith has spent a decade tormenting bowlers in whites. Now he’s openly wondering whether he’ll still be wearing them when Australia next walks out for an Ashes Test in England.
At 37, with a Test average of 56.00 from 125 matches and a place among the greats already secure, Smith is edging towards a crossroads that has been looming for years. He sits fourth on Australia’s all-time Test runs list and needs just eight more to pass Steve Waugh and move into third. The numbers say he’s still the best batter available to Australia’s Test side. The man himself isn’t promising he’ll be around for the next English summer.
“I don’t even know if I’ll be there yet,” he told the UK Telegraph, laying bare what many suspected but few expected him to say out loud.
Ashes dream, uncertain timeline
For a player of his stature, the absence of a Test series win in England is a glaring gap. It has long been assumed that chasing that elusive away Ashes triumph would keep Smith and several of Australia’s senior figures going for one more tilt.
Smith isn’t so sure.
“I’m kind of a series-by-series proposition, as I’ve been for a while, and that’s still a fair way away for me right now,” he said. “So, yeah, I’d love to win (a series) there or to have won one there, but you wait and see if that comes to fruition.
“I’ve had a lot of fun. I’m still enjoying it, so I don’t have an end date, we’ll wait and see. But it’s been a good ride.”
Those are not the words of a player locking in another two years of Test grind. They’re the reflections of a champion who knows he has nothing left to prove in the longest format, and who is starting to look elsewhere for his next challenge.
From red ball to Olympic rings
While some, like Mitchell Starc, are doubling down on Test cricket, the global game is tilting hard towards the shortest format. Franchise leagues, packed calendars, and now the lure of the Olympics are reshaping priorities.
Smith insists money is not what’s driving him. The target he keeps returning to is unusual for a Test titan: the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where cricket’s T20 format will return to the Games.
“Right now probably it’s just the Olympics, to try to be a part of that,” he said when asked about his remaining goals.
He’ll be 39 by then. There is no guarantee he will still be in Australia’s best T20 XI, no guarantee he’ll even be playing international cricket. He knows that. Which is why he’s throwing himself into as much T20 as possible now.
At the moment, that means a stint in Dublin, turning out for Amsterdam Flames in the European T20 Premier League. It’s an unlikely stop for a man who once seemed welded to the Test arena, but it fits his new reality.
“One of the reasons why I wanted to play with Amsterdam here was just to continue playing as much T20 cricket as I can,” Smith explained. “I was keen immediately to come and play in a new market and, hopefully, share some experiences with the local players and associate players: share a dressing room with them and try to impart some of my knowledge on to them. It’s been really good.”
There’s a telling detail in that. This is not just a superstar cashing in. It’s a senior pro consciously broadening his T20 game while mentoring others, using his final years to both prepare for one last big stage and leave something behind.
Return to South Africa, return to the past
Before any decision on the Ashes, before any Olympic push gathers real pace, another chapter awaits: South Africa.
Next month, Smith will rejoin the Test side for a tour that carries a very different kind of weight. It will be Australia’s first visit to South Africa since the 2018 ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town, the incident that reshaped his career and reputation and led to bans for Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.
For Smith, walking back into South Africa as a senior statesman of the side rather than a disgraced captain will be a powerful full-circle moment. The scars of that episode have never fully faded, but his body of work since returning has rebuilt his standing in the game.
Whether this upcoming stretch of Test cricket marks the beginning of the end or just another chapter, only he knows. For now, Smith is straddling eras: one foot still planted in the traditional realm where he built his legend, the other edging towards floodlit nights, franchise jerseys, and the five-ringed stage of Los Angeles.
At some point, he will have to choose. Will the Ashes in England be his last great red-ball quest, or a dream he leaves unfulfilled in favour of a shot at Olympic gold?
