Australia defeated India by 9 wickets in the Indore Test and made the team return and now the score has become 2-1 in the four-match Test series.
Image Credit source: PTI
Indore: What does the game of cricket have to do with chess? The same question will arise in everyone’s mind when he listens to Australia’s legendary batsman Steve Smith. After leading Australia to victory as stand-in captain in the third Test against India in Indore, Steve Smith opened up about his captaincy. In this, Smith talked about the challenges and fun of captaincy in India and in these talks, he said that captaining India is like playing chess.
After losing the first two Tests of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Australia needed to win the Indore Test to stay in the contest and they did. The difference was that in the first two Test matches, the team was being commanded by regular captain Pat Cummins, who returned to the country before the third Test to take care of his sick mother. In such a situation, Smith took the responsibility as the vice-captain and like the 2017 Pune Test, won the team here too.
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Reached Indore with good preparation
On the third day of the Indore Test, Australia achieved the target of 76 runs from India by losing only one wicket. After this victory, Smith kept his heart’s words about the captaincy and the challenges of this test. The veteran batsman said, we lost the match because of a bad season in Delhi. We got a good break to recover from it and came here well prepared. It was about strengthening our mental state. It was about trusting your ways. It was about having faith that we would be successful and the result of the match would be in our favour.
‘Captaincy in India is like playing chess’
Great Australian captain like Ricky Ponting also could not win any Test in India but Smith registered his second win in 5 Tests. Obviously captaincy in India has worked out better for him and Smith also admitted that he likes captaining here because it is like a game of chess. Smith said,
India is the part of the world where I would love to captain. It is like a game of chess, every ball has some meaning. It’s fun to run people around and force batters into different things and play games with them. You have to think one step ahead. This is my favorite place in the world to captain.
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‘Love playing in such pitches’
The spinner-friendly pitches at the Holkar Stadium were criticized but Smith is not bothered by it and relishes such a challenge. He said, till now all the wickets have been helpful to the spinners. We have not been able to play cricket for more than three days so far. This shows that spin is happening in all Tests from day one. I love playing on such pitches. It gets boring playing for five days on flat pitches.
“There is always something or the other happening on these wickets (pitches). You have to work really hard for your runs, but guys have shown that they can do it. If Usman in the first innings, Pujara, Rohit, Akshar, Handscomb did it in Nagpur, other people can also do it. Yes, here you also need a little bit of luck.
