Test captain Steve Smith says he will play through the pain of niggling injuries and intends to turn out in every international game of the Australian summer.
Smith was rested from the Sydney Sixers' first two Big Bash League matches as he nurses persistent knee and hip complaints.
Despite being put through a heavy workload in the last several months, he said he planned to turn out in the Boxing Day and New Year's Tests against the West Indies and the upcoming one-day and T20 series against India.
"I'd love to play every game. I think this little break is going to be good for me to make sure I can sustain it I guess," Smith said on Sunday.
"I'm just looking forward to everything else coming up and hopefully being out on the field every game.
"I think the rest will do me a world of good. Obviously there is plenty on for the rest of the summer and going forward so a little break is not a bad thing for me. I'm good to go for Boxing Day."
His absence from the ODIs would see David Warner take over the captaincy while Aaron Finch is the incumbent T20 captain.
Smith has been playing through the pain of the knee injury since the one-day series with England in August and suffered a flare up during the Hobart Test.
While a rest beckons some time in the future, Smith said he intended to play every game in the Australian schedule.
"(The knee injury) popped up in the one-dayers after the Ashes and it's sort of stuck around," Smith said.
"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.
"I guess it's fine going at 90 per cent, it's just if I have to go at 100 per cent it's a little bit sore.
"That's why I'm not playing the T20s (Big Bash) because I'm a pretty competitive guy and it's a pretty fast-paced game and you've got to go 100 per cent to do well in this format."
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