India completely bamboozled Australia in the second Test, despite a decent start by the visitors. In the second innings, spin wizards Jadeja and Ashwin took seven and three wickets respectively, completely destroying Australia’s batting unit. As a result, Steve Smith’s starring team could only manage to post 113 runs on the board. India faced some challenges of their own but eventually triumphed over Australia by six wickets.
STEVE SMITH SCORED A DUCK AND 9 IN THE 2ND TEST
Many Australian batters were dismissed playing the sweep shot in the second innings, including former captain Steve Smith. He played an uncharacteristic shot, not moving his front foot away from the line of the ball, and got out cheaply. Unfortunately, his teammates didn’t learn from his mistake and tried the same, resulting in many more dismissals.
After the lackluster performance, batting coach Michael di Venuto revealed that Steve Smith expressed his frustration in the dressing room following his dismissal. He hasn’t spoken to Smith yet, but he made sure everyone in the dressing room knew about it.
Venuto said:
“I haven’t spoken to him (Steve Smith) yet about that, and where he’s at. But he’s excited about these conditions, he loves these conditions. It will be a frustrating thing for him at the moment that he hasn’t had the impact he would have liked. He was certainly disappointed when he got out, and he made it known in the dressing room it was a poor shot. I think most people would have heard that, so they should have had a fair idea of what not to do.”
“Uz (Usman Khawaja) played beautifully in the first innings and has through Pakistan and the subcontinent. It (sweeping) is part of his game, but he also picks the balls to do it. It’s smart, he’s not using it as a form of defence and I think that’s what happened towards the back end (of Australia’s second innings). People weren’t trusting their defence so started trying to sweep, which is the wrong way to go about it.”
Venuto further added.
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