Smith declares desire to play every game

Though admitting to knee pain whenever he pushes his hardest, Australia's captain Steven Smith has declared his intent to play every match of the home summer as he comes towards the end of an overdue rest period between the West Indies Tests.

The niggling knee complaint was the primary cause of Smith's enforced rest after his side's victory in Hobart last week, keeping him out of the Sydney Sixers' first two BBL 2015-16 fixtures. He has been carrying the knee soreness since the ODI series that followed the Ashes in England earlier this year, with flare-ups resulting from any diving in the field.

It remains to be seen whether Smith will be fit to take part in all of Australia's limited-overs fixtures in the new year - David Warner may find himself as stand-in ODI captain against India while Aaron Finch is the incumbent T20 skipper - but the man himself is adamant he will be doing all he can to play throughout, with a tour of New Zealand and South Africa followed by the World T20 in India.

"I'd love to play every game," Smith said at the SCG on Sunday. "This little break's going to be good for me to make sure I can sustain it and I'm just looking forward to everything else coming up, and hopefully be out in the field every game.

"I'd have loved to be out here today [for the Sixers] but the rest will do me the world of good. There's plenty on for the rest of the summer and going forward, so a little break's not a bad thing for me and good to go for Boxing Day. It's been good, nice to spend a little bit of time at home and just unwind and do all that.

"I'd love to be a part of the World Cup and the T20s here at home as well, so we'll wait and see how the rest of the summer goes, hopefully I'll be fine to play those."

T20s will be the main test of Smith's maneuverability, and he has admitted that he is presently affected by knee pain whenever striving to move at his fastest. Australia's players reconvene in Melbourne on Tuesday, where Smith will find out how much his week's rest has helped alleviate the issue.

"It popped up in the one-dayers after the Ashes and it's sort of stuck around. It feels ok and then if I dive and land on it just irritates it a bit, so I've been doing that a little bit," Smith said. "I guess it's fine going at 90%, it's just if I have to go at 100% it's a little bit sore. That's why I'm not playing the T20s because I'm a pretty competitive guy and it's a pretty fast-paced game and you've got to go 100% to do well in this format."

Smith said he was also keeping one eye on the fortunes of Usman Khawaja, testing his healing hamstring for the Sydney Thunder at the MCG in the second of Sunday's two BBL fixtures. "It will be a good test," Smith said. "Hopefully he gets through it okay and there are no dramas."