Steve Smith will not open in Test series vs India, confirms George Bailey

Australia batter Steve Smith will not open the innings vs India, confirmed Australia chief selector George Bailey. The announcement comes nearly a month ahead of the first Test match of the Border Gavaskar Trophy.

In Short

• Australia selected their A squad for India tour
• The Steve Smith opening experiment ends ahead of BGT 2024/25
• Australia will now search for a new opener

Australia's opening conundrum is wide open after Steve Smith decided to return back to his original No.4 spot for the Test series against India. Australia's chief selector George Bailey announced the development on Monday, October 14, while announcing that Cameron Green would be out for six months due to his back surgery.

Smith, who had promoted himself to the opening spot after the retirement of David Warner will be going back to his usual spot, where he averages 61.51 in 111 innings. Bailey revealed that captain Pat Cummins and coach Andrew McDonald have already had conversations with Smith about the same.

“Pat, Andrew (McDonald) and Steven Smith have been having ongoing discussions, separate to the untimely injury to Cameron, anyway and I think Steve had expressed a desire to move back down from that opening position. Pat and Andrew have confirmed that he will be dropping back down the order for the summer," George Bailey told the press on Monday, October 14.

AUS vs IND: Cameron Green out for 6 months

Smith played 8 innings for Australia in the opening spot and scored a total of 171 runs. The legendary batter was not able to make his mark in the spot and has now left Australia will very little time to select someone. Australia white-ball opener Travis Head has already confirmed that he has no interest in opening the batting in the red-ball format.

Australia have named multiple openers for the tour games against India. Cameron Bancroft, Marcus Harris and young prodigy Sam Konstas are expected to be in the running for the opening spot in the India vs Australia Test series.

Australia A squad for Tour matches

Nathan McSweeney (c), Cameron Bancroft, Scott Boland, Jordan Buckingham, Cooper Connolly, Ollie Davies, Marcus Harris, Sam Konstas, Nathan McAndrew, Michael Neser, Todd Murphy, Fergus O’Neill, Jimmy Peirson, Josh Philippe, Corey Rocchiccioli, Mark Steketee and Beau Webster.