{"id":701511,"date":"2026-01-17T06:10:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T06:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/701511\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T06:10:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T06:10:19","slug":"cricket-news-steve-smith-makes-big-call-on-t20-future-after-record-act-shines-light-on-world-cup-snub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/701511\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket news: Steve Smith makes big call on T20 future after record act shines light on World Cup snub"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Smith<\/strong><\/a> has ruled out any hope of an 11th hour call-up to Australia’s T20 Cricket<\/strong><\/a> World Cup squad despite fans clamouring for his return on the back of outrageous BBL form. Smith produced an innings for the ages<\/strong><\/a> in the Sydney Sixers’ five-wicket win over Sydney Thunder on Friday night, clubbing nine sixes and five fours in his 42-ball 100 before a full house at the SCG.<\/p>\n

In the first of the surge overs, the champion right-hander smashed four consecutive sixes in taking a record 32 runs from the over. That’s after one of his earlier maximums clattered into the roof of the Brewongle Stand and was measured at 107m.<\/p>\n

\"Pictured<\/p>\n

Steve Smith’s extraordinary BBL century for the Sydney Sixers has raised further questions around his omission from Australia’s T20 World Cup squad. Pic: Getty<\/p>\n

Smith’s extraordinary innings has made headlines around the cricketing world and left fans asking how on earth he missed a spot in Australia’s squad for the T20 World Cup starting next month in India and Sri Lanka. His omission barely rated a mention at the time but Smith’s stunning form in the BBL over the past two seasons has fans demanding a re-think.<\/p>\n

He has scored 292 runs in his last four innings at an average of 146, recording a strike rate of 238.09 in his demolition job on the hapless Thunder. Cricket commentator and podcaster Andrew Menczel led the call for an international return, tweeting: “Get him back in the Aussie T20 team!! Are you telling me Matt Short is better than Steve Smith?”<\/p>\n

One fan added: “The push for JFM (Jake Fraser-McGurk) to play in the 2024 T20 World Cup swept a nation and always felt a bit ridiculous. The same public push should happen for Smith, especially because there is an actual serious weight of runs behind him.”<\/p>\n

Steve Smith targets Olympics after divisive World Cup snub<\/p>\n

But Smith is not expecting a return to the Australian set-up should injury open up a spot ahead of next month’s tournament. “Not the World Cup. I think that’s already done and dusted,” he said when asked if he still held out hope of a recall.<\/p>\n

“Maybe the Olympics in a few years (2028), that’s been one of my big goals. I\u2019d love to be part of an Olympics and that’s why I stopped playing one-day cricket \u2026to give myself more opportunities to play Big Bash and a few other tournaments around the world and keep putting my name up there. That’s essentially it.”<\/p>\n

\"Seen<\/p>\n

Steve Smith celebrates his stunning century for the Sydney Sixers in their BBL victory over the Thunder. Pic: Getty<\/p>\n

(Matt King – CA via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Australian selectors named a provisional 15-man T20 World Cup squad earlier this month but there are still fitness concerns over Tim David, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood. Countries have until a week before the tournament starts to make changes to their squad, pending International Cricket Council (ICC) approval.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Smith has ruled out any hope of an 11th hour call-up to Australia’s T20 Cricket World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4101],"tags":[186,1406,6047,79,70102,197948,175979,16,15,1514],"class_list":["post-701511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-matt-short","tag-sports","tag-steve-smith","tag-sydney-sixers","tag-sydney-thunder","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115908957224757642","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}