Australia captain Steve Smith reminded India that the momentum in the Border-Gavaskar series has swung back in his team’s favour after the Ranchi Test. The 27-year-old also stated that Virat Kohli’s side would be “hurting” after they failed to bowl Australia out on day five despite being a position of command.
“If there’s anything called momentum, it’s with us at the moment. India coming today would have expected to bowl us out. I’m sure they’re hurting a little bit in their change room,” Smith said.
“It’s 1-1 and we have a decider in Dharamsala, which is really exciting,” added Smith during the post-match press conference.
He also heaped praise on Peter Handscomb and Shaun Marsh’s gritty effort which took their side to safety. The duo built a timely 126-run stand to blunt the Indian bowlers in the last two sessions of the day’s play.
“Very proud. They had magnificent plans. They backed their defense for long periods of time to see the game out for as long as they did was an outstanding performance. I’m really proud of the way they did that.”
“That’s one of the things we’ve been talking about - being resilient and sticking out the tough times. The way Petey [Peter Handscomb] and Shaun [Shaun Marsh] did that was magnificent. It’s never easy to bat in the fourth innings in India to save the game,” Smith said.
Despite scoring a brilliant 178 in the first innings, the No.1 ranked Test batsman said that his team not getting another 100 runs on the board allowed their opponents to get back in the game.
“We were ourselves (about) 100 runs short in the first innings,” he said. “We would have liked to get 550 and been able to get in front of the game from there, (and) things could have ended differently, (but) that’s the game of cricket. It’s great to see the batters have worked very hard with their plans and are contributing,” Smith added.