Australia batter Steve Smith has admitted that it has been challenging for him as a Test opener so far. Smith took the role after David Warner called time in whites for Australia in January earlier this year. Smith, who has nearly 10,000 Test runs, was then promoted up the order to open the batting.

“It’s been challenging so far. We’ve played with some tricky wickets, particularly new-ball wickets that have done quite a bit. It has been challenging. I’d love to sort of turn it around and score some runs up there, that’s for sure,” Smith told news agency PTI in an interaction.

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The Aussie has batted in four matches as an opener and has been able to score just 191 runs in eight innings at an average of 28.50 with a highest score of 91 not out. Smith, however, said that he isn’t thinking much about it.

“I’m not reading too much into it. You know, I feel like I’ve still been batting well,” he said while acknowledging that he needs to fix a few technical things.

“A few things I’d like to fix up a little bit technically, but I’ve had that going throughout my whole career, and it doesn’t really matter where I’m at in that respect. We’ll wait and see,” he added.

Smith also said that the wickets he has opened on have been a bit tricky as well with opposition batters also failing to score runs on them.

“Can’t sort of underplay how difficult the wickets have been. A lot of the top orders that we’ve played against haven’t scored a great deal of runs, and it hasn’t been until the 30-40 overs-mark that we’ve seen the wickets get a little bit better and the lower order score some runs,” he added.

Overall, Smith has played 109 matches for Australia with 9,685 runs to his name after starting his career at number nine. He is now considered Australia’s one of the best batters ever with an average of 56 in Tests alongside 32 tons and 41 fifties as well.

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