India vs Australia: Steve Smith admits rare mistake in New Delhi Test, aims to make amends
Steve Smith, who will be captaining Australia in the third Test against India starting on Wednesday at the Holkar Stadium in Indore with his side desperate to bounce back, admitted that he made a mistake of playing the sweep shot in the second innings of the second Test in New Delhi and that he was expecting better from himself and other batsmen in the visiting camp.
The No 1 ranked Australian cricket team has been hammered 2-0 so far in the first two Test matches of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2022-23 as India have proved too hot to handle for the visitors, especially their spin bowlers Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Akshar Patel creating problems not just with the ball but also with the bat.
It is also not the case that Australia have been outplayed throughout in both the Test matches – they were in position of control but lost them in a quick passage of time, playing aggressive cricket and losing the plot and resultantly the match.
Steve Smith told media ahead of the third Test that he expected better from himself and his batsmen, as he is all set to lead Australia once again with Pat Cummins likely to be ruled out for the remainder of the tour.
“I’ve played, what, 95 Test matches (94) and I don’t think there’s been too many times I’ve walked off the field and I’ve gone, ‘what the hell am I doing?’”
Steve Smith told reporters in Indore.
“I was pretty angry. There hasn’t been too many times in my career where I’ve actually come off and just been bedazzled by what I’ve done. It wasn’t my finest moment. Certainly something to learn from, I’m still learning as well. It wasn’t the way I wanted to play, particularly when I had the field set for all of us – they had the field out.
The right-handed world-class batsman Steve Smith admitted that in order to force matters on India, Australia rushed through processes rather quickly and should rather look to slow things down the middle especially when Indian spinners are looking to bowl quick overs to their batsmen.
“We probably just rushed things a little bit and it’s something we’ll talk about …when we’ve got them on the ropes, we can slow things down. We don’t have to play at such a high tempo and risky tempo. Because we had them where we wanted them, we had men out and the ability to get off strike. We just rushed it.”
Steve Smith also added that he does not like the term “the ball with your name on it” as he wants to grind down and play long innings and not carry a slam-bang approach, something which Australia tried to implement but failed miserably.
“There’ll be odd times when you get a very good ball and get dismissed. (But) I don’t like the term, ‘have (a ball) with your name on it’ so much, you’ve got to try and take that out of your mind. If you get in, you get used to the conditions as such, the pace of the wicket, the bounce, all those kinds of things,”
Steve Smith said.
While Australia do not have the opportunity left to win a series in India, they can still play better cricket than they did in Nagpur and New Delhi in the first two Test matches and challenge the Indian cricket team, whose batsmen themselves have not been able to get big runs.
Apart from the first innings century from Rohit Sharma in Nagpur, none of the Indian top order batsmen have been able to make a strong mark and they have been bailed out of trouble more than once by the likes of Akshar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja.
The challenge has compounded due to the absence of premier bowler Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, but Australia are hopeful that the return of their left-arm star pacer Mitchell Starc and all-rounder Cameron Green will help them produce better performances over the next two Test matches to be played in Indore and Ahmedabad.