Steve Smith blames poor batting for Australia’s failure
Mar 29, 2016 at 12:10 PM
At one point in time against India at Mohali, the Australians were simply cruising at 53-0 in just 4 overs. However, what followed ahead was simply miserable for the Kangaroos as the Indian bowlers made a comeback into the game and never allowed the Australian batsmen to settle. The poor show in the middle overs where the likes of Glenn Maxwell and Shane Watson failed to convert their starts, fatally dented Australia’s chances.
Skipper Steve Smith admitted that Australia’s poor performance in the middle overs was the precise reason behind their loss to India. “We probably let ourselves down in the middle overs again,” he said. “That’s one area we haven’t done so well at, particularly in these conditions, consistently. That was something we have worked really hard on. We let ourselves down there, lost a few wickets in clumps. We were not able to get that partnership to get the score a bit above par to 170. It’s disappointing,” Smith said.
“The middle overs is one part of our game that we are trying to work on,” added Smith. “When we get that right, we are a very dangerous side. For us, it’s about making sure we find a way to play spinners in middle overs, getting off the strike, not chewing up too may dot balls and wait for the ball to hit to the boundary, the Australian skipper added.
“I thought we started off well. There was a great little partnership at the start, but as I said, we let ourselves down in the middle overs. 160 was around par. If we would have got few partnerships in the middle, we could have been up to 170-175, which would have been very competitive. But, I thought we were in a pretty good position at one point in the defence, when they were needing around two a ball. It took a seriously unbelievable inning under pressure from Kohli to take his team over the line,” said Smith.