‘That’s always been on the bucket list for a few of us’, Steve Smith

Following two underwhelming performances in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Australia bounced back hard in Indore to beat India by a convincing 9-wicket margin and reduce the series deficit to 2-1. Steve Smith, who stood in as the captain for the third Test in the absence of the injured Pat Cummins, admitted that the 10-day break between the second and the third Test proved helpful for the visitors.

Smith said in the post-match press conference on Friday –

“The break came a good time for us, we were obviously disappointed with the way things ended particularly in the last game and failing to take our opportunities, and knowing after that second test we can’t actually win the series. That’s always been on the bucket list for a few of us.”

Following a six-wicket defeat in New Delhi, which included a dramatic batting collapse in the second innings, Australia failed to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which was last held by them prior to the 2017 series in India.

Smith added – “For the guys to be able to regroup, trust themselves with what they’re trying to do and just try to do it for longer. It’s something we’ve spoken about and the way we did it this week was really pleasing. It’s about taking the result out of play, have faith in our methods for long enough, we’re good enough players to get the results we’re after more often than not.”

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Smith explained –

“The message at the start of the day was to take the scoreboard out of play and pretend like it’s day one and we know if we are batting at lunch then getting 75 runs was more likely.”

“The guys did that nicely and when Travis got his opportunity after getting himself in and they changed the ball, it looked like it wasn’t responding quite the same, and Heady put the foot down and played to his areas and there you go, we got over the line.”