Before the must-win third One-Day International, Australia captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner had pointed out the flaws which ultimately brought their downfall in the first two games.
While Smith rightly said the regular collapses had robbed the world champions of good scores in recent times, Warner said the failure to get off to a good start piled pressure on the middle-order. Well, Warner ensured that the visitors get a good start in the do-or-die clash at Indore, as he and Aaron Finch added 70 runs for the first wicket before the latter and Smith shared a 154-run partnership to lay the foundation for a big total.
However, the collapse once again came to haunt the tourists. With the scoreboard reading a promising 224 for one in the 38th over, Australia was looking destined to post well above 300. But Finch’s dismissal opened the floodgates, as the likes of Glenn Maxwell, Travis Head and Peter Handscomb failed to rise to the occasion, and India managed to restrict them to 293 for six. The Men in Blue went on to chase the total with ease in the end to seal the series.
Speaking after the loss, Smith admitted that Australia failed to get the desired score on the board after the top-order gave the team a good start.
“I probably thought our first probably 38 overs with the bat was very good,” Smith said. “That was kind of the template we were trying to set. Two guys in the top four going on – one guy to get a hundred obviously, and the others bat around. We just weren’t able to execute it in the back end. I think that was probably… we got 69 off last 74 balls lost five wickets. If we got to 330-340, which we probably should have done, things certainly could have been different.”
“That’s probably a bit of a trend for this format and Test format as well. We are quite often getting ourselves into good positions but not taking advantage of those. It’s just hard to put your finger on it, what we are actually doing or not doing to get the results we are after,” he added.
Australia’s struggle gets reflected by Steven Smith’s shocking mistakes on the field. One of the best fielders in the world at the moment, Smith had dropped catches at crucial junctures in the series. He had put down Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya in Chennai and then Bhuvneshwar Kumar in Kolkata, and later dropped Pandya once again in Indore. It turned out to be a costly mistake in the end, as Pandya played a decisive 78 runs knock.
“At the moment, my catching hasn’t been good enough,” Smith lamented. “I think I’ve dropped one in every game I’ve played so far [in this series]. I’ve been working hard, just might need to work a little bit harder to try and set the standard. It went in the air and was swirling a little bit, a fair bit of spin on the ball. I expect myself to take those chances. If I get my hands to the ball, I expect to catch them.”
With the series now done and dusted as far as a result is concerned, Smith insisted the team management will motive the players to bounce back in the remaining two games. Moreover, with the Ashes coming up, Smith will certainly want his team to get back to winning ways.
“It’s always hard when you lose. Particularly when you’re down three-nil at the moment. We’ve got to continue to try and motivate the players and get them up for the next two games. We’ve got to start winning games of cricket. I think we’ve lost 13 of the last 15 games we’ve played away with two being no results. That’s pretty ordinary. Not good enough for an Australian cricket. We need to start turning the results around and winning some games of cricket.
“It’s a different format [the Ashes], but I’ll certainly like to start winning some games of cricket in every format, to be honest. Our results haven’t been good enough, and we need to turn them around,” Smith concluded.