Australia's linchpin, famous for his workaholic approach to batting, is limiting his training time with the willow at the Twenty20 World Cup.

Smith, who top-scored in Australia's nerve-jangling win over South Africa in their cup opener, says he's been on restricted duties for months.

The prolific run-scorer was ruled out of Australia's short-format tours of Bangladesh and the West Indies in July-August.

The same issue sidelined Smith from Australian domestic cricket last February and March, but is different to the problem that required surgery on his right elbow in January 2019.

"Basically, the last little bit with IPL and training even before that, I have tried to bat every second day or not bat basically three days in a row, just to take a bit of load off," Smith told reporters on Tuesday.

"But on the days I am batting, I'm batting for basically as long as I really want to which is nice.

"It was just a progression really ... a few months ago I was only allowed to bat for 10 minutes, then it went to 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and I worked my way up to 45 minutes in the nets.

"And at that point it was back to basically normal and I could carry on with my business."

Smith said he would spend more time batting at training on return to Australia after the T20 World Cup, adding he had no lingering concern ahead of the five-Test series against England starting on December 8.

"I will build up again as we get closer to playing some longer format stuff," he said.

"It (the elbow) feels really good. I'm continuing with my strength work and rehab stuff so I feel like I am going well and progressing along nicely."

At the T20 World Cup in the UAE, Australia next meet Sri Lanka early Friday, Australian time.

The Australians scraped past South Africa with just two balls to spare in their opening five-wicket win when chasing only 119 runs to win and Smith said lower scores were expected on challenging pitches.

"Even throughout the IPL playing on these wickets, there was a lot of really scrappy cricket, not huge scores, which made the games pretty interesting and quite close," he said.

"Slightly different to a lot of T20 cricket that you would play, quite often you see just flat wickets and big scores.

"You have to change ways you need to play and adapt according to what is required on the surface ... I do think we're going to see plenty of scrappy cricket in this tournament."

Australian Associated Press