{"id":46762,"date":"2025-01-13T10:39:49","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T10:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/steve-smith-to-lead-australia-in-three-match-test-tour-of-sri-lanka\/"},"modified":"2025-01-13T10:39:50","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T10:39:50","slug":"steve-smith-to-lead-australia-in-three-match-test-tour-of-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/steve-smith-to-lead-australia-in-three-match-test-tour-of-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Smith to lead Australia in three-match Test tour of Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Former captain Steve Smith will lead Australia in the upcoming three-match Test series against Sri Lanka as Pat Cummins will be on paternity leave. <\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Smith, 35, previously served a two-year ban from captaincy following his involvement in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/cricket\/43565737\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">2018 ball-tampering scandal<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cummins is missing the series for the birth of his second child and seamer Josh Hazlewood is also left out as he recovers from a calf injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Spin-bowling all-rounder Cooper Connolly earns his first Test call-up while Nathan McSweeney, who opened in the first three Tests in the recent series against India, retains his place. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">McSweeney, 25, scored 72 runs in six innings before being replaced by 19-year-old Sam Konstas, who is also named in the squad. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Connolly, 21, has played two one-day internationals and two T20s for Australia and is yet to take a wicket in either format.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He joins Nathan Lyon, Matt Kuhnemann and Todd Murphy in the spin attack, while Mitchell Starc, Scott Boland and Sean Abbott are the frontline seamers. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">All-rounder Mitchell Marsh has also been omitted after a poor series against India while Beau Webster, who replaced him in the final Test at Sydney, keeps his spot. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The first Test takes place on 29 January in Galle. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Australia&#8217;s series win over India saw them qualify for the World Test Championship final, where they will take on South Africa at Lord&#8217;s on 11-15 June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Australia Test squad for Sri Lanka: <\/b>Steve Smith (capt), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Sam Konstas, Matthew Kuhnemann, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Nathan McSweeney, Todd Murphy, Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/cricket\/articles\/c75w5v5z7ngo\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former captain Steve Smith will lead Australia in the upcoming three-match Test series against Sri Lanka as Pat Cummins will be on paternity leave. Smith, 35, previously served a two-year ban from captaincy following his involvement in the 2018 ball-tampering scandal. Cummins is missing the series for the birth of his second child and seamer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[41],"tags":[409,7178,1101,1451,6581,2837,318,15829,2384],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46762"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46764,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46762\/revisions\/46764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}