Former Indian skipper Sunil Gavaskar welcomed Australian batsman Steve Smith as one of the greatest to have ever played the match. The 71-year-old was at the way Smith match on day one of the third Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).
Steve Smith was going through a harsh patch of form in the running Border-Gavaskar Trophy, having marked only 10 runs from his initial four innings. However, Most of the great batsmen always search a way to come back to their very best, and that is right the 31-year-old manage to do.
Wowwwwwwww 🤤
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Talking to the Sony Sports Network later the end of the day’s play, Sunil Gavaskar clarified why he feels Steve Smith is one of the greats of the game. Although he is unusual in the way he bats, Smith is mighty effective, and his runs express volumes about his impact as a batsman.
“He (Steve Smith) is one of the greatest batsmen the world has seen, a different method than you would expect, not quite standard but consistency and amount of runs he has scored is phenomenal,” the 71-year-old informed Sony Networks.
Ravichandran Ashwin was proved to be successful against Steve Smith in the series, having rejected the Aussie twice before. However, the 31-year-old looked decided from the very first ball not to let the off-spinner dominate him.
Smith means business!
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Smith used his feet superbly and collected a few limits off Ashwin’s bowling. He looked easy against both pace and spin, not letting the Indian bowlers settle to a specific line or length.
“You can see that from the body language. He was looking to step down the pitch every time Ashwin gave the ball little bit of air and he was quite happy to play the ball towards the on the side with the turn, he was leaning more into the drive, so more control over the ball and was keeping it along the ground. Once he got that mid-wicket boundary he got a lot more confident,” Gavaskar asserted.
Steve Smith has earlier added 60 runs for the third wicket with Marnus Labuschagne, and Australia would be happy to have ended a rain-hit day one on 166-2. The 31-year-old is seem well place, and these are ominous signs for Team India.
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