Australia and Smith rue multiple what-ifs as they pick themselves off the canvas after their defeat to India.
Australia and Smith have been left to rue over missed opportunities that cost them the semifinal against India.
“I missed a full toss. It wasn’t ideal.”
Speaking about a moment that turned the tide of the game against his side, this is one of the best hitters of our time.
Batting regally on 73 in the 37th over against India, Steven Smith was poised to lead Australia into the last overs. He then dashed towards Mohammed Shami, was thrown full height at about knee height, and missed it entirely. It shook the off-stump.
Australia then used the 75 balls at their disposal to score 66 runs. Later on, Alex Carey batted with the tail and scored 61 off 57. Late boundaries were attempted to be broken by Nathan Ellis. However, this is a significant point in the game that helped establish India’s supremacy.
“My plan was to try and put the seamers under a bit more pressure, and just rotate the spin,” Smith said after the match. “But I didn’t do it very well. I lost my wicket at probably a crucial stage. Had I batted a little deeper, we could have potentially got up to near 300 or something. Alex was batting really nicely at the other end. It was a disappointing time to get out, but that’s the game sometimes.”
“The square block as a whole, I think, has seen a lot of cricket over the last couple of months. We can see it’s pretty tired and that’s probably the reason why we haven’t seen a score above 300 in the tournament here so far. So we did a reasonable job, but we probably just lacked a couple of those partnerships just dragging out a little bit further.”