Former Australian skipper, Steve Smith has denied the allegations of attempting to erase the guard mark of the Indian wicket-keeper batsman, Rishabh Pant in the batting crease during the third Test against India on Monday, saying he was just trying to mark center as he always does.
Video evidence of the same from the stump camera of Smith dragging his boot across the crease on a tense final day of the match went viral on social media and some former players accused him of gamesmanship at best, cheating at worst. However, during a recent chat with News Corp, Steve Smith asserted that he was “shocked and disappointed” by suggestions he had tried to gain an unfair advantage.
After drinks break Aussie comes to shadow bat and scuffs out the batsmen's guard marks.
Rishabh Pant then returns and has to take guard again.#AUSvIND #AUSvsIND #AUSvINDtest pic.twitter.com/aDkcGKgUJC
— James Buttler | Cricket Badger Podcast 🏏🦡🇺🇦 (@cricket_badger) January 11, 2021
Explaining the same, Steve Smith said, “It’s something I do in games to visualize where we are bowling, how the batter is playing our bowlers and then out of habit I always mark center. It’s such a shame that this and other events have taken away from what was a great batting performance by India yesterday.”
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Skipper Tim Paine said Smith, who was stripped of the Australian captaincy and banned for a year in 2018 for his part in the Newlands ball-tampering scandal, had merely been indulging one of his many idiosyncrasies.
Paine had said, “If you’ve watched Steve Smith play Test cricket, that’s something that he does every single game five or six times a day. He’s always standing in the batting crease shadow batting. As we know, he’s got those many Steve Smith quirks and one of those is he’s always marking center. He was certainly not changing (Pant’s) guard and if he was that’s something that the Indians would have kicked up a bit stink about at the time.”
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Pant’s heroic knock of 97 set the platform for India to save the Test as they were chasing a daunting target of 407 to win, with Hanuma Vihari and Ashwin literally frustrated Australia’s attack over the last three hours to secure a draw. Paine said Smith might have to give up the practice given how it was interpreted.
