‘It is a shame’: Aussie skipper sympathy for undermanned England in Christmas miracle

An Aussie captain feeling sorry for an English rival? It must be a Christmas miracle.

But that is the case with Steve Smith, who will return to the Australian side for the Boxing Day Test and resume his role as stand-in skipper in place of Pat Cummins after overcoming an inner-ear condition.

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With Australia having already retained the Urn and now seeking a whitewash in the Ashes, Smith was quizzed as to whether he had any sympathy for an English team under intense scrutiny.

The spotlight has swung from England’s brief preparation for the series to allegations several members of the team overindulged during a break in Noosa between the Brisbane and Gabba Tests.

Smith, who lost the Australian captaincy and was suspended for a year after the Sandpaper-gate scandal in South Africa, is no stranger to the stress associated with being in the spotlight and expressed sympathy for what England are going through.

“When you’re losing, the spotlight is always on you and things can get spoken about and get blown up pretty heavily,” Smith said at the MCG on Christmas Day.

“So … I feel for them, in a way. It can be tricky. You’re in a country where you know you can go out and about and enjoy yourselves, and with big breaks, you know, you’ve got to experience the country that you’re in as well. And they had a pretty big break in between.”

Smith said he had no qualms with a team taking a break between games and said that it can sometimes be a circuit breaker for a side under pressure or struggling for their best form.

“Sometimes I think you’ve just got to – and I heard a few of the comments – but you have got to get away from the game and try and put it out of your mind and just relax for a little bit too,” he said.

“And I can see that’s the kind of path that they wanted to go down and I think it’s fair enough. I can’t really comment more than that on how they’re feeling or how they’re going about things but, yeah, I certainly believe that when you’ve lost two Test matches, and you’ve got such a long break, sometimes you just need to get away from the game and switch off entirely.”

Smith’s assessment follows his counterpart Ben Stokes’ strong defence of his teammates on Christmas Eve.

Stokes, who spent time in the nets alongside fellow members of England’s top order including Joe Root and Harry Brook, expressed concern about the mental health of his side.

Ben Duckett and Jacob Bethell, who will make his Ashes debut on Friday, are under scrutiny after video footage emerged of their revelry in Noosa during the break.

The pair also batted in brisk conditions in the nets on Christmas morning before joining their teammates and families in the middle of the MCG for a family gathering.

“The welfare of everyone in there, and probably some certain individuals, is the most important thing to me right now as England captain,” Stokes said.

“This kind of stuff is very – I don’t know if ‘close to me’ is the right wording – but something I have first-hand experience of how it can affect people.

“My role as England captain is to protect my players as much as I possibly can.”

Australia’s stand-in captain, meanwhile, said it was a shame he will not get to face English speedster Jofra Archer again in this series after their fiery encounter at the Gabba made headlines.

Smith was unable to play in Adelaide after suffering from a vestibular issue while Archer has been ruled out for the rest of the series with a side strain, though he was with the team for Christmas Day and took part in an impromptu game of soccer on the MCG.

“He obviously bowled really well last week. He came out and bowled with good pace,” Smith said.

“And … I might have had something to do with that in Brisbane, perhaps at the back end. So look, you never want to see good players missing games. But injuries happen for fast bowlers.

“Our skipper (Pat Cummins) is out and Josh Hazlewood, who has played for a long time, is out too. It happens.

“It is a shame that he’s not going to be around for the next couple of games but I still think they’ve got some quality seamers in their line-up that can do damage.”