Ashes: Steve Smith speaks about Australia's delayed squad announcement

Steve Smith (Pic: File Pic)

Australia's stand-in captain Steve Smith said that the team is yet to decide on their final playing XI for the fifth Test match of the ongoing Ashes series.

The Aussies will enter the clash, having reclaimed the title, as they have a lead by 3-1.

On the other hand, the Ben Stokes-led England announced their 12-man squad, in which they have named Shoaib Bashir for the SCG Test. Smith said that Australia will announce its final playing XI only after getting a proper assessment of the Sydney pitch.

Speaking about it, he said, "Nah, haven't had a chance to look at the wicket this morning, so all options are on the table currently. Yeah, obviously hasn't had a great deal of sunlight, so yeah, need to check it out, see what it looks like. It still looked pretty green yesterday, so yeah, we need another look at it".

"Could play a couple of all-rounders. Could play a spinner. Could play no spinner. We'll figure it out once we see the surface and see which way we want to go about it," he added.

Further speaking, Australia's stand-in captain also said that the management will look at how they can match up the players.

"No-one's locked in yet. As I said before, we haven't picked a team. There's 13 or 14 guys on the table and we want to see that we can see how we match up against that," Smith said.

He then said that the loss at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) was disappointing, and is also hopeful of yielding good results in the upcoming clash.

"It was disappointing last week to go down. We were outplayed at the back end of that game. So yeah, hopefully we can turn it around here, win this series 4-1, and now more importantly, I suppose, just win a Test in the Test Championship cycle," said the 36-year-old cricketer.

ENG vs AUS 5th Test: Venue and date of the match

The fifth and final Test match of the ongoing Ashes series is scheduled to be played from January 4 at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Australia will look to seal the series 4-1, whereas the "Three Lions" will play for pride and try to end the series on a positive note.

(With ANI Inputs)