Smith eager to have last Ashes laugh

LONDON: When Steven Smith made his Ashes debut in Perth during England’s victorious 2010/11 tour of Australia he was, following prompting from then captain Ricky Ponting, clear on his role in the team.
“I’ve been told that I’ve got to come into the side and be fun,” Smith said. “For me, it’s about having energy in the field and making sure I’m having fun and making sure everyone else around is having fun, whether it be telling a joke or something like that.”
It seemed an extraordinary thing for him to say in public. His words didn’t seem to offer much hope of a lengthy career for a leg-spinning all-rounder, particularly one with an unorthodox batting technique, and were duly mocked by England.
But roll on a few years and the situation is very different. Smith is now the world’s number one ranked Test batsman, with five hundreds in his last six Tests at an average of 131.5.
Now the task of for Smith, who as the son of an English mother was courted by county side Surrey with the aim of becoming England qualified, is much more straightforward: it is to score runs and plenty of them as Australia bid to win their first Ashes series in England in 14 years.
“I remember Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell getting into me quite a bit,” Smith, now Australia’s vice-captain, told reporters as he recalled his first experience of playing against England.