Steve Smith is eligible to captain Australian cricket once again after his two-year leadership ban came to an end on Sunday.

Smith captained Australia until the infamous ball-tampering scandal at Newlands in 2018, which resulted in lengthy bans for himself, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.

All three players have since then served their time and made a return to international cricket with Smith and Warner in particularly adding great value to Justin Langer’s team.

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Wicketkeeper Tim Paine has been the captain of the Australian Test team in the past two years, while opening batsman Aaron Finch has been leading the team in the limited overs format and also captained the Aussies to a World Cup semi-final last year.

Warner, who was Australia’s vice-captain when the Cape Town incident occurred, will never take up a leadership role again after he was slapped with a lifetime ban from any captaincy position.

Despite world cricket being place on a current hold due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Australian management can now start to think and plan if they’d want Smith to return to leading the country again in any of the formats.

Although that seems highly unlikely at the present time, Paine, who is 35-years-old could soon be contemplating retirement, which might open the door for Smith to take the reins again.

Earlier this month, former Australian World Cup winning captain Michael Clarke threw his weight behind Pat Cummins as a future leader of Australian cricket.