While trying to command the situation, Smith played the grave digger sweep shot which cost him his wicket at a time when Australia needed him to bat through. It was Ravichandran Ashwin who sent Steve Smith back to pavillion with a simple delivery. The message was clear “sweep shot is dangerously”, however, Australian batters decided to use it and unfortunately lost the match.
With wicket of Steve Smith, a disaster followed for Australia as the lost 8 wickets for mere 28 runs. “I don’t think there’s been too many times I’ve walked off the field and I’ve gone, ‘What the hell am I doing?’” Smith told reporters in Indore on Tuesday.
“I was pretty angry. There hasn’t been too many times in my career where I’ve actually come off and just been bedazzled by what I’ve done. It wasn’t my finest moment.
“Certainly something to learn from, I’m still learning as well. It wasn’t the way I wanted to play, particularly when I had the field set for all of us – they had the field out.”
“We probably just rushed things a little bit and it’s something we’ll talk about … when we’ve got them on the ropes, we can slow things down. We don’t have to play at such a high tempo and risky tempo.
“Because we had them where we wanted them, we had men out and the ability to get off strike. We just rushed it.”
In the absence of Pat Cummins, Smith, who will captain Australia for the third Test, revealed the tourists had not yet decided on their starting lineup for the Wednesday match in Indore.
With a batting average of 67.73, he ranks third among Test captains in history, behind only Sir Donald Bradman and Kumar Sangakkara.