In 2024, Cricket Australia held a fan poll to rename their One-Day domestic competition after one of it’s greatest 50-over players.
It is appropriate, whether by design or otherwise, that Smith has bowed out of ODI cricket while still being committed to playing Tests. It allows people to both notice and appreciate how good his one-day career was, given his 50-over record lives in the shadows of one of the most extraordinary Test careers of the modern age. He was pivotal to two World Cup wins. He was twice Australia’s ODI player of the year. His standing among Australia’s best in the format is undersold.
His ODI career was only one year shorter in length than Ricky Ponting’s yet he played 204 fewer ODIs, speaking to proliferation of T20I cricket post 2010 at the expense of the 50-over game and the format’s lesser relevance outside of global events.
It was no surprise then to see the reactions of some of his team-mates on social media to his sudden exit from the 50-over game. David Warner, a fellow Australia ODI great, said Smith is the “best player I’ve played alongside in my career” without any format caveats.
Those two innings perhaps best encapsulate Smith’s ODI batting. There is an assumption that his short-form method is just an extension of his Test match brilliance. He has long been the insurance policy to a poor start, using his technical skill and savant-like game awareness to sum up the conditions, accumulate with minimal risk and set up the innings for others to finish.
High-class No. 3 and 4 batters are like gold dust in ODI cricket. T20 specialists have time and again proven inadequate to handle the range of scenarios those batters face in the medium-length version of the game
But Smith’s ability to move through the gears is underappreciated. He could step on the accelerator when needed and had a greater ability than most to go up the gears against the opposition’s best bowlers.
His impact wasn’t just with the bat. Smith’s name does not come front of mind when a list of Australia’s greatest ODI fielders is called for. You couldn’t compile an hour-long highlights package of all his direct hits like former YouTuber Rob Moody once did for Ponting. But some of Smith’s catching was otherworldly. He was Glenn Phillips before Glenn Phillips at backward point, taking one-handed grabs at full stretch like they were routine.
All this from a player who was initially selected as a legspinning-allrounder and did not bat in 11 of his first 36 ODIs before his first innings at No. 3. He only bowled 11 times in his last 134 matches thereafter.
As captain, his tactical nous was often on display, right up to his final match as he tried to marshal an inexperienced attack against India’s batting behemoths but a defining moment eluded him. Smith led Australia in 64 ODIs from 2015 to 2025. Only Ponting, Allan Border, Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor and Michael Clarke have done so on more occasions. All five of those captained Australia to a World Cup final and four secured seven titles between them. Smith was the only one not to lead his country in a World Cup. The leadership ban imposed after the 2018 ball-tampering scandal meant he was ineligible for the 2019 edition and by 2023 Pat Cummins had taken over.
His ODI retirement can be viewed one of two ways. Optimists are hoping it will extend his Test career. Pessimists would suggest this an indicator that the end is closer than what Australia would hope. He referenced being committed to the home Ashes at the end of this year but nothing beyond that despite saying, “I feel I still have a lot to contribute on that stage.”
The task of replacing him in the ODI side is hard enough without contemplating the cavernous hole he will leave in the Test side. Australia haven’t been able to replace Warner adequately yet in any format. It took two years for Smith to emerge as Ponting’s heir at No. 3 in ODI cricket. Australia only have two years to complete another such search before the next World Cup.
High-class No. 3 and 4 batters are like gold dust in ODI cricket. T20 specialists have time and again proven inadequate to handle the range of scenarios those batters face in the medium-length version of the game.
Smith was Australia’s ODI Swiss-army knife. Reliable and adaptable. They never went anywhere or succeeded in anything without him. He might never have a 50-over trophy named after him, but it will be very difficult for Australia to win their next one without him.
Alex Malcolm is an associate editor at ESPNcricinfo
