Experienced Australia Test batsman Steve Smith has expressed his views on Team India’s bowling plans against him last summer. Smith has said that India’s pace attack outsmarted him in the first two games before he managed to score a century in the third.
However, India’s bowlers restricted his free-flowing scoring by bowling straighter lines and not giving him much width during the four-match Test series. Moreover, they used strong leg-side fields to restrict Smith from scoring there.
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Speaking to cricket.com.au, Steve Smith said: “I wasn’t too surprised with the way India came at me last summer. It was more about just trying to stop me scoring for a lot of the time – they were just trying to ‘out-patient’ me, in a way, and I think they probably got the better of me in the first couple of Tests, and then I got going in Sydney, where I actually started to bat a bit better as well.”
Steve Smith, who has ranked second among the batsmen in Test, could not live up to the expectations as Australia suffered a series loss at home soil. He has averaged 44.71 in the four-match Test series, scoring 313 runs as well. However, Smith is all set to face England in the upcoming Ashes series and he is confident to do well after working on his batting technique also.
Meanwhile, he has been named the vice-captain of the team while Pat Cummins will lead the team as well. While he was the leading run-getter in the last two Ashes series, this time too he will try to maintain his dominance as well.
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“I think I’ve got my game pretty well set now, and then I think there’s just minor tweaks that need to come in place depending on who I’m playing against, where I’m playing and what’s coming at me. Being able to adapt is the most important thing for me in terms of longevity; people come up with different plans – different fields, different ways of attacking you – and it’s up to you to be good enough to counter what comes at you. That for me is what I try and improve each day – just my thought process on how I want to go about it,” Steve Smith concluded.
