‘Kumar and Bumrah best death-over bowlers’

indore — Australia skipper Steve Smith has described Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar as currently the best death bowlers after his team suffered a five-wicket loss in the third ODI in Indore.

Aaron Finch (124) had propelled Australia to 242-2 in 38 overs with his fiery century but the visitors struggled to score briskly in slog overs to settle for 293-6.

India then overhauled the target without fuss to take an unassailable 3-0 lead in the fivematch ODI series.

“I think a mixture of guys making probably the wrong decisions on the wrong balls. Also, some pretty well executed bowling. I think Bumrah and Bhuvi are probably two of the best death bowlers going around, particularly when the wicket sort of slows up a little bit as it did,” a dejected Smith said after the match.

“We still need to find a way. We set a template really well. The first 38 overs were magnificent. We set it up and we just weren’t able to execute it in the end.”

Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar never allowed Australian batsmen to score freely despite having the opportunity to play aggressive cricket.

Smith said it has actually become a “trend” for his side to get closer to winning games but they end up losing them. “We are quite often getting ourselves in 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 said.

We’ve got to start winning games of cricket. 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,” he said.—