Star Australia batsman Steve Smith says he is “feeling good” after recovering from a concussion.

The 32-year-old hopes to replicate his big scoring stint from the Ashes during Australia’s tour of Pakistan, their first in 24 years.

Smith fell heavily and banged his head attempting a boundary catch in the second T20I against Sri Lanka in Sydney last month, ruling him out of the rest of that series.

Smith, who is expected to be a batting mainstay for the tourists in the three-match Test series starting in Rawalpindi on Friday, said he is looking forward to some big scores.

“I’ve progressed really nicely,” Smith told a virtual media conference from the team’s hotel in Islamabad. “Now I am excited to be in Pakistan. I love getting on a roll and being able to play a lot of cricket, and just finding my groove.

“The last away tour, I performed really well in the Ashes and hopefully I can replicate something similar in this series,” said Smith, who scored a whopping 774 in England in 2019, with three hundreds.

Smith has a good record elsewhere in Asia, with 1,200 of his 7,784 runs plundered in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the UAE.

Now he is looking forward to the challenge of playing in unfamiliar Pakistan conditions, where Australia haven’t toured since 1998 because of security issues.

“I love playing on different surfaces, and all the different challenges of playing on different surfaces around the world,” he said. “Hopefully I hit a lot of balls in the next few days and find a nice rhythm going into the first Test on Friday.”

The Australia squad held their first practice session on Monday after completing a 24-hour Covid isolation and providing negative tests.

The team is also being kept in a tight security bubble, travelling in armoured vehicles to and from the hotel and with more than 4,000 security personnel deployed specifically for the tour.

Smith said he always longed to play in Pakistan.

“It’s the first time a lot of us have been here. We’re really excited,” he added. “We know how passionate Pakistanis are about cricket.”

The second Test is in Karachi (12-15 March) and the third in Lahore (21-25 March).

The tourists will also play three ODIs and a single T20I fixture.

© Agence France-Presse