Ahead of facing South Africa in the upcoming ICC World Test Championship Final, Australia’s premier batter Steve Smith revealed that he hasn’t faced a single ball since missing a full toss from Mohammed Shami in the 2025 Champions Trophy semifinal.

After that game, where Smith hit 73 as Australia lost the semi-final, he announced his retirement from ODI cricket and spent his last three months in New York, USA, where he worked extensively on his fitness. While his other teammates were at IPL or County Championship, Smith didn’t touch the bat at all – something which comes as a surprise considering his obsession with the bat and shadow practising at every given opportunity.

"I'd normally have a bat laying around the house somewhere and just pick it up and do a bit of shadow batting and stuff. But I made a conscious decision to try and just let it go for a while. It was good. I hadn't hit a ball since I missed a full toss off Mohammed Shami in the Champions Trophy.

"Fortunately, everything sort of clicked into place immediately. I feel like I'm moving really well, I feel strong and just ready to get into it now. Normally how it works is my first hit's good, my second hit's awful, and then I'd get better from there.

But both hits were just really good and I was like, hopefully it doesn't turn around now and I don't have to spend hours in the nets the next couple of days," a rejuvenated Smith was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

Australia look as front-runners to defend their WTC crown against South Africa when the one-off final happens at Lord’s from June 11-15. It also helps that Smith, 36, averages 55 in Tests in England, and that shoots up to 58.33 when playing at Lord’s. Moreover, in the 2023 World Test Championship final against India at The Oval, he made 121.

But there was a lull in Smith scoring centuries till he hit back-to-back centuries against India in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series and went on to hit two more hundreds on the trip to Sri Lanka earlier this year. He further said a conversation with former Australia batter Michael Hussey got him to take a "less is more" practice approach.

"We're a bit older, we've hit a lot of balls. It's about having that mental side as switched on as it can be for the big moments. And you don't want to use up all your energy in the nets.

There's a fine balance, of course. I'm someone that needs to feel really prepared.

"And I don't want to leave any stone unturned in my preparation so that when I go to the middle, I'm ready to play. But I've also got to realise that the older you get, the mental side I think probably wears a little bit thinner on you. And you've got to try and be in the best space you can be in the middle to bat for long periods of time.

"Sometimes I might get the balance wrong. But when you're hitting the ball well, you can sort of do what you want in terms of your preparation in a way. You can just let it be and trust that when you get to the middle, it's all going to be okay," he concluded.