Smith blames batsmen after defeat
NAGPUR Australia captain Steve Smith criticised a lack of consistency among his batsmen for the struggles of the world champions in 4-1 series defeat against India on Sunday.
Australia were handed a seven-wicket defeat in the final game, again failing to build on a solid start provided by David Warner and Aaron Finch.
“We showed some glimpses throughout the series that we could play, but we’ve been losing wickets in clumps very consistently and that’s not good enough,” he told reporters.
“The top four need to stand up and really take control. We did that in a couple of games; the Bangalore game to be particular. But we are not doing it consistently enough,” Smith said.
“It’s (batting collapse) been addressed several times. We are just not taking our words out in the middle and delivering with actions. We have glimpses of it, play well in periods and then just get ourselves in trouble.”
Australia has seen a number of new faces in the last two years. The win in Bangalore came after 11 straight away losses. Smith rejected suggestions the shuffling has made it tough for the players to understand their roles.
“They know their roles and template of the way we want to play. We are just not doing it consistently enough. We talk about making big scores and setting it up for the guys to have an onslaught in the last 10-15 overs. When we do it, we get the results.”
Smith admitted it was a brilliant show by India to restrict runs in the middle overs after Australia were 100/1. They lost wickets to be restricted to 242/9.
“Virat set some really good fields and stopped us from hitting and I don’t think we adapted well enough,” Smith said. “Today was probably a day when we could have used softer hands, played a bit square and hit the ball into the gaps instead of actually hitting the ball down the ground. We probably didn’t adapt as well as we would have liked to.”
Underlining that there can be several changes in the days to come, Smith added: “Some guys are back playing the domestic one-day competition at the moment, and yeah, there’re some guys there that can put pressure on the guys that are here.
“The results haven’t been good enough and we want our guys to perform consistently. We will have a good look at the one-day competition back home and hopefully a few guys can jump out of the pack and score big runs and bowl really well as well.”
“We had a chat after our second game. It was about playing the spinners and hitting the ball down the ground, We did that in a couple of games. (But) Virat set some really good fields and stopped us from hitting and I don’t think we adapted well enough.”
Smith had a modest sequence of 16, 3, 63, 59 and 1. “I wasn’t feeling great at the start. I had a few issues I was working on but I guess I slowly found a nice tempo.
“I’d have loved to score a lot more, (but) have not been able to get runs like I have in the past few occasions. From that aspect as a team leader it has been disappointing. You’ve those periods when you’re not getting the scores you like, something I can turn around in the T20Is.”
We are just not taking our words out in the middle and delivering with actions. We have glimpses of it. play well in periods and get in trouble On the Aussie batsmen I’d have loved to score a lot more, (but) have not been able to get runs like I have in the past few occasions... It has been disappointing. On his modest showing