It is a known fact that the Australian cricketers never shy away from taking a dig at their oppositions be verbally or with the cricketing skills but the current captain Steve Smith has developed a very modern take on the sledging aspect of the game. It is a well-known fact that Smith dismantles the bowler’s mind when he twitches in the batting crease and he did something very similar in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in India earlier in the year.
He had a very heated Border-Gavaskar Trophy in India and was involved in several altercations with the Indian players throughout the course of the series.
“I like to try and annoy them a little bit with some of my mannerisms rather than anything I say,” Smith said on the Back Page Live panel show this week.
Smith had an interesting and funny confrontation with Indian pacer Ishant Sharma during the series which was more of a slapstick than sledging. Smith yet again got involved in an animated discussion with Indian captain Virat Kohli on the 2nd day morning. But what unfolded next was pretty funny. It was Ishant Sharma who made weird faces after a length ball failed to bounce.
“I think I got under (the Indian team’s) skin on a few occasions, which was nice,” Smith said. The Aussies were brilliant in the 1st Test at Pune winning by a big margin but lost the Bangalore Test and the Dharamsala Test to surrender the Border Gavaskar Trophy. India eventually won by a 2-1 margin after the Aussies fought out a hard earned draw in the Ranchi Test.
“It was a pretty heated series, playing over there in India. But it was a great series. We probably should have gone a little bit better than we did. But hopefully, we can learn a lot from the way we played there and keep moving forward as a team,” Smith said.
Following the series against India, Australian players went back to white ball cricket with most of the players taking part in the IPL before their Champions Trophy campaign was all but washed out.
“All the boys have been training and working incredibly hard and everyone’s fit,” Smith said.
“It’s actually been a good little period for us … for the international guys, we don’t often get these kinds of breaks so it’s nice to get some strength work in and some fitness in to try and sustain a level for a period of time now.