“If Smith is doing a good job you just say ‘right, we’ll stick with him and have Michael Clarke as a player'”

Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo

Former Australia skipper Ian Chappell believes that Steven Smith should be the country’s full-time Test captain since Michael Clarke will be out of action for a while.

Clarke had his hamstring surgically repaired on Tuesday after he tore it and injured his back during the first Test against India in Adelaide.

“Michael Clarke is probably going to struggle to make the Caribbean,” Chappell told Channel Nine. “He [Smith] could be captain for quite a while now. And if he does a decent job I don’t think Michael Clarke should be given the job back. I think he [Smith] should keep it.

“I don’t think you can be chopping and changing captains. And then you’ve got the other problem of if Michael Clarke does come back, his injury history now is so bad, as a selector you’d be very worried that he’s there for one and gone for a couple.”

Even though Smith is the third-youngest person to captain Australia in Tests after Ian Craig and Kim Hughes, Chappell still feels that he is the right man for the job.

“I always thought about 27 was right because you’re more mature as a person,” Chappell said. “You’ve generally, in an Australian side, played a lot of cricket so you’ve had experience in a variety of conditions and you’ve established yourself as a player and won the respect of your teammates as a player. Twenty-five is a little younger than that but he’s done all those things.

“If Smith is doing a good job you just say ‘right, we’ll stick with him and have Michael Clarke as a player’.”