Steve Smith is relatively young and in excellent form, but hard-earned perspective has him discussing early retirement

Steve Smith drove home this aphorism on Thursday evening when he conceded that he was undecided as to whether he would still be playing Test cricket next summer.

It’s hard to comprehend. In an era when athletes across the world are excelling deep into their 30s – think Lionel Messi, Rafael Nadal, LeBron James, Jimmy Anderson and Serena Williams – Smith appears to be seriously contemplating pulling the pin on his Test career after this year’s tours of India and England.

More confounding still is the knowledge that, for so long, there was little else in Smith’s world but cricket, and in particular batting. “My life had always been cricket,” Smith wrote in a column for CODE Sports last summer. “It was all I’d ever really done and known.”

Smith has doubtless mellowed since returning from the sandpaper saga, but is still consumed by the sport to the extent that his sleep during Test matches remains patchy at best, a fact to which he attested before the second Test of the West Indies series earlier in the summer.

Smith says he is still enjoying cricket. And while his form may never again reach the heights of his peaks either side of Cape Town, he remains the world’s No. 2 Test batter, behind only Marnus Labuschagne, and still possesses the second highest average (60.89) in history among batsmen to have played at least 50 Tests, behind only Don Bradman.

He has scored centuries against both of this summer’s touring sides, with Thursday’s century at the SCG against South Africa taking him to 30 Test tons, ahead of Bradman and behind only Ricky Ponting and Steve Waugh among Australians.

Ponting (41 Test centuries) and Waugh (32) both finished on 168 Tests. Smith reached his milestone in just 92. Waugh played until he was 38, Ponting until a few weeks shy of that birthday.

There is very little to suggest Smith, still only 33, couldn’t keep going for another four, five or even more years if he wanted to. Fitness and form aren’t an issue. Indeed, over the last 12 months, Smith’s average of 61.25 is higher than his career mark. Should he play on for the next few years, Ponting’s Australian record would be in serious danger.

Really, at the rate he’s going, it’s not completely fanciful to think Smith couldn’t finish close to Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 51 Test tons if he really wanted to. The Windies are coming back next summer, along with Pakistan, who rarely provide much of a contest out here.

Smith only needed to look at his fellow centurion on Thursday in Usman Khawaja to see how successful a batter can be past 35. He could cast his mind back a week to David Warner’s 200 at the MCG and reach a similar conclusion. And as Smith himself notes at his press conference, both those guys are a couple of years older than him. If history is any guide, the pageant could continue until close to the turn of the next decade.

However, there is another Warner comparison that ought to be considered.

Perhaps the strongest narrative of this summer was around Warner’s supposedly waning form, tied into his doomed and eventually thwarted bid to have his lifetime leadership ban overturned. Warner has spoken repeatedly about the impact the saga has taken on his family, how he had been drained and distracted heading into the start of the Test summer and how his mental health had been challenged.

While the microscope was stationed on Warner, maybe we forgot about Smith.

About how, while he may only be 33, the toll of rebuilding his reputation post-Sandpapergate may in some respects have left him a much older cricketer. His 12-month ban provided a rare mid-career period of introspection. It took away what he loved, in doing so providing perspective of what is really important in life. In particular his work with the Gotcha4Life charity, which aims to prevent suicide, showed that miscuing a drive isn’t the end of the world.

“With hindsight, I can see now that the year away from cricket and the work with Gus [Worland] has given me perspective that I previously didn’t have,” he wrote. “It was the first time in my life I could just be Steve and not Steve The Cricketer. I still love cricket, but I can see now how much more there is to life, too.”

He continued: “I lost a lot in that period, and that was fair enough because what happened in South Africa was wrong. But I think I gained a lot at the same time and I think it’s made me a better person. I feel more balanced rather than just being cricket crazy the whole time.

“I’m grateful for my family and friends, my teammates and coaches, and life generally.

“I’m not sure I could’ve said that before.”

Smith has conquered Test cricket individually. From a team perspective he is a World Cup winner across both white-ball formats and has the chance this year to cross off three major goals not yet realised in his time: Test series wins in India and England, and a World Test championship.

Maybe in the back of his mind there is the thought that, if the Aussie Test side fulfils its potential this year, his job will be done.

At one level it would be odd for him to retire first from Test cricket, which remains his strongest format.

His output in Twenty20 cricket has diminished to the point that he is now a fringe international player at best in that format. Should he want to join the short-form circuit, it is unlikely he would ever command money near that of Warner, let alone the emerging Cameron Green.

But Smith has expressed an interest in settling in New York post-cricket. It is a city in which he found salvation during his lowest ebb in 2018. The Big Apple is an appealing haven whose lure has dragged bigger names even than Smith.

We are all on notice. Savour the genius while it lasts.