Australia was unable to win the coveted Border-Gavaskar Trophy after suffering consecutive losses in the first and second Test. The Pat Cummins-led team was bowled out for 113 runs in the second innings of the contest despite having the situation under control, according to veteran batsman Steve Smith, in the second Test in Delhi.
India easily defeated their opponent by six wickets by chasing down the pitiful total. Smith confessed that he was really upset with the way he was let go when asked about his dismissal and Australia’s failure in the second Test. He expressed his opinions on Australia’s mistakes during the game.
“I’ve played 95 (94) Test matches…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?’ 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,” Smith said.
“It wasn’t the way I wanted to play, particularly when I had the field set, for all of us actually, they had the field out. We probably just rushed things a little bit and it’s something we’ll talk about when we meet [on Wednesday]. 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,” he continued.
“I think starting your innings is as tough as anywhere in the world here in India” – Steve Smith
The ball started spinning in the first two Tests of the series on Day 1, which placed Australia under a lot of pressure. Smith claims that Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are exceptionally intelligent bowlers and that it will be difficult for the hitters to get going against them if things are not slowed down.
“It’s not easy. That’s the way they (Ashwin and Jadeja) go. They know when they are on top of you, they’ll try and rush you and play on their terms. For us, when we’re under pressure it’s about slowing it down as much as we can; maybe making them wait a little bit, walk away and regain your thoughts rather than just coming back and back. Certain things like that.”
“I think starting your innings is as tough as anywhere in the world here in India. We know if you get in, you’ve got to make it count. There’ll be odd times when you get a very good ball and get dismissed. I don’t like the term, ‘have one with your name on it’ so much, you’ve got to try and take that out of your mind,” he added.
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