Smith slips costly for koalas
IT might just be the pressure of saving a national icon that has prompted Steve Smith’s spate of summer spills.
Usually as safe as a bank with his hands, Smith yesterday dropped his fourth catch of the summer to give England a chance of leaving Australia with a consolatory Ashes win.
And now we’re blaming the koalas. Since signing a deal with a company that agreed to adopt 20 koalas for every catch he takes, Smith has had four spills to leave 80 koalas without an adopted home.
No wonder he was hitting the hallowed turf of the SCG in disgust yesterday when he missed a near impossible chance to give Dawid Malan when England where at 3-178. Lucky Smith has been making runs.
As part of the cute and cuddly deal with Koala Mattresses, the company has also been adopting a koala every-time Smith scores a run. So while he might have left 80 critters homeless with his missed catches, he has saved 604 with the bat. Smith’s deal with the mattress exporter has proved a hit for the start-up company with the koala stuck on the captain’s bat alone generating huge publicity.
Smith wasn’t the only Australian that suffered a stroke of bad luck with Cameron Bancroft and Mitch Marsh also missing chances. Fielding at silly mid-off, Bancroft failed to get his hands to a rocket to remove Alastair Cook.
The ball hit him in the foot before crashing into the turf.
Marsh’s miss was less forgivable, throwing to the wrong end when he had a chance to end the Cook and Malan partnership with a run-out. Wicketkeeper Tim Paine received Marsh’s throw then chucked the ball to the bowler’s end but was wide.