Australian skipper Steve Smith has lashed out at his batsmen after the loss in the 2nd ODI at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata. He has blamed the lack of application of the batting order that has caused collapses in both the matches so far.
In the pursuit of 252, Australia, at one stage was going strong at 85/2. But as it happened a few times in the past, the batsmen succumbed to the spinners and collapsed again to fall 50 runs short of the target. Smith has asked for it stop as it has happened far too often across all formats of late.
“It’s happening a bit too often for my liking, to be honest with you, in all forms of cricket. We’ve had a lot of collapses and we need to stop. It’s easy to just sit here and say ‘it needs to stop’. But when you get out in the middle, you have to change what you are doing because it’s not working,” Steve Smith said.
Need to make better decisions
Smith feels that perhaps the batsmen are watching the ball too closely and not focusing on the basics. He reckoned that too many collapses at the big stage is not good enough.
“Watching the ball closer or maybe the guys are trying to watch it too closely and forgetting about just playing the game. It’s a hard one to put my finger on but whatever it is, it needs to change and we need to make better decisions when we’re under pressure and start playing the game properly because we’re having too many collapses and it’s not good enough.”
With just 3 more matches to go in the series, Australia will have to win all 3 to claim the series. The next ODI will be played this Sunday at the Holkar Stadium in Indore.
