Cricket: Smith looks to help reclaim Australia's glory days

Steve Smith has transformed from fringe player to the side's form batsman. Photo / AP

Australia win the final easily and lift cricket's World Cup.

For the majority of Steve Smith's childhood, he knew no better.

From the age of 10 until 21, Smith's compatriots had a veritable mortgage on the most meaningful piece of cricket silverware in the world. They won in 1999, 2003 and 2007 - becoming the first nation to triumph at the one-day international (ODI) event three consecutive times.

But when Smith left with Australia for the subcontinent in 2011, then a leg-spinning allrounder yet to register a half-century in 15 ODIs, the glory one-days ended.

Fresh from the humiliating home Ashes series loss that prompted the Argus review, Australia went down by five wickets to eventual winners India in their World Cup quarter-final. Smith didn't play that match.

Most fans will instead remember his collision at the tournament with Ricky Ponting when, instead of celebrating a catch, the skipper hurled the ball to the ground in frustration. Four years later, Smith carries huge expectation as four-time champions Australia seek to win the World Cup on home soil for the first time.

The 25-year-old will have plenty of support during the campaign, which starts against England at the MCG on February 14. David Warner and Aaron Finch are arguably the most potent opening partnership in the world, James Faulkner (if fit) is a formidable finisher, while Mitchell Johnson and Mitchell Starc loom as game-breakers with the ball.

But it is Smith who will be the key wicket for rivals after a stellar year, in which he transformed from fringe player to the side's form batsman. His 769 runs in the four-test series against India broke all manner of records, but the right-hander has looked just as composed in the dark green and canary yellow.

Powered by AB de Villiers, zen master Hashim Amla and ferocious firebrand Dale Steyn, South Africa should dominate Pool B. Australia are well placed to do the same in Pool A and, if so, an MCG final between the two sides on March 29 is very much on the cards. Given the rivalry, which became even more heated last year following Michael Clarke's confrontation with Steyn in Cape Town, it would be a fitting end to the event.

Clarke's desperation to return from hamstring surgery and lead his team for the first time at a World Cup has been an intriguing sub-plot.

By all accounts the 33-year-old skipper is well ahead of schedule after selectors set February 21 - the second match, against Bangladesh in Brisbane - as the deadline for him to take part in the tournament. If Clarke is playing, stand-in skipper George Bailey could be squeezed.

Coach Darren Lehmann and his fellow selectors also face a tough task coming up with their first-choice bowling attack, given Johnson, Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins all command a berth.

The pressure will be on chief selector Rod Marsh and Lehmann - as it will be on Clarke, Bailey, Smith and all their teammates.

AAP