Steven Smith pinpointed the loss of quick wickets in the middle phase of the run chase at Rajkot as the reason behind Australia’s loss. Despite India racking up 340, Australia were in the game until Smith was at the crease. Kuldeep Yadav’s twin strikes – the wickets of Alex Carey and Smith then derailed the run-chase completely.
“The area where we lost it was losing the three wickets in between 30 and 40 overs and not having someone there that could start to launch,” Smith said after the game on Friday.
“If we had someone that had been out there for a while, perhaps things may have been different but that was probably where we lost it,” he added
I thoughtMarnus played really well in his first outing, first bat in ODI cricket. We were going at a reasonable rate at around six an over for a while. We playing good cricket shots. I thought we timed the run (rate) reasonably well but just losing those three wickets in that 30 to 40 overs but (was) a big dent in the run chase,” said Smith.
According to Smith, India’s victory was owing to their partnerships in the middle overs.
“I think it’s just our normal one-day game plan, with the ball it’s trying to take wickets and stem the run rate that way, obviously they had some pretty good partnerships, Virat (Kohli), Shikhar (Dhawan) and KL Rahul played really well at the back end. They were able to form some partnerships through the middle,” he said.
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