India Vs Australia 2017 - Steven Smith Blames Batting Failure For Loss

For Australia, serious questions loom over the side’s ability to play spin. With every passing game, the Kangaroos are getting embarrassed by the spinners in the subcontinent and the second ODI at Kolkata made for another instance of that. Needing a modest target of 253 to win the game, Australia were rattled by Bhuvneshwar Kumar early on, and later it was the spin of Kuldeep Yadav which did the job.

 

Barring the exception of skipper Steven Smith, and to an extent Travis Head, none of the Australian batsmen looked like getting settled. Glenn Maxwell got carried away after hitting a couple of sixes, and it was this dose of adrenaline which led to his downfall.

 

Towards the end, Marcus Stoinis fell short of partners, and Australia ended up losing by 50 runs. Post the loss, Smith stated that his batsmen would have to step up, and blamed them for the loss.

 

“We were pretty happy with 250, thought we pulled things back pretty well. Did a really good job there. Batters though made poor decisions, and you can’t do that against a quality team like India. Stoinis was good at the end there, just needed someone to bat with,” said Smith.

 

“One of the top four needs to go on and make a hundred, just making poor decisions under pressure. To reduce India to 250 on that was pretty good. Need to get those partnerships; if we do that then we should chase these totals down comfortably. They’ve got all bases covered, don’t they,?” Smith added.