Australia Would Like To Play In Brisbane Despite The Lockdown: Steve Smith

Australian batting maestro, Steve Smith says that his team doesn’t have any issues in playing in Brisbane for the fourth and the last Test of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar series against India. The Queensland government has announced a mandatory quarantine for people coming in the state from Sydney, which is where both the team are playing the third Test.

Smith, who notched up his 27th Test hundred on Friday, made his comments in regards to the recent news of Indian players and the BCCI unhappy to go into hard quarantine again – after already doing a 14-day period upon arriving in Australia – if they go to Brisbane. The Gabba is Australia’s fortress as they have not lost a Test match there since 1988.

The players will only be allowed to mingle in the hotel and not move out of the hotel apart from practicing and playing. Ironically, the stadium is expecting a crowd of more than 30,000 people.

“To my knowledge, not anything is changed from our point of view, we will wait and see and that is not our decision to make, we are the players and we go where we are told and do what we need to do, but we would like to play at the Gabba for sure,” Steve Smith said after the second day’s play.

Steve Smith hits his 27th hundred; hits back at the critics

That experts – former cricketers and fans – were questioning Smith’s form is annoying to the right-hander. Smith points out that not long ago, against the same opposition, at the very same venue, he smashed a couple of 62-ball tons in the ODIs. Smith finds it funny that low scores in a couple of Tests – 1, 1*, 0, and 8 – making people doubt his form; but only he is culpable to have set the bar so high.

On 99, Smith tucked a Navdeep Saini delivery towards deep square leg. After completing his third run which took him to his 27th Test ton – 8th against India – Smith let out a roar venting his frustrations over the comments he has been hearing for the past few weeks since the first Test as the Indian bowlers have tied him down.

He swung his bat twice in the air – as if sweeping all his detractors away, kissed the badge on his helmet, and resumed batting to take his side to a competitive total.

“I read a lot of things and plenty of people said I was out of form, so it was nice to come back into form if that’s what you want to call it. It was only about three or four weeks I think [since] I scored two hundreds at the SCG. It kind of just makes me laugh sometimes when people say that kind of thing, I missed out in the first two Test matches,” Steve Smith said.

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