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Steve Smith Feels Glad On Finding His Hands Again Before India Series

Steve Smith feels glad on finding his 'hands again' before India series

Former Australian captain and now a star of the batting line up, Steve Smith is feeling happy about things clicking for him in his technique while he is preparing for an all-important series against India. The Blacktown Sports Park where the members of the Australian squad who have returned from the Indian Premier League in the UAE, Steve Smith has found a perfect positioning of his hands on the bat which he found missing during the IPL which did not turn out to be well with the bat for him.

The past few days I have found something ... I have found my hands which I am extremely excited about," Smith said today. It's taken me about three-and-a-half or four months to do it. I had a big smile on my face after training the other day, I walked past (men's team assistant coach) Andrew McDonald and said 'I've found them again'”, Smith said.

Smith said the missing aspect in his batting technique was a pretty simple flaw but it made him feel uneasy about where he was meeting his bat with the ball and ultimately it hindered his performances.

“Theoretically it is a simple thing, but it is just getting that feel and the look of the bat behind my toe the right way and the way my hands come up on the bat. It's hard to explain but it just hasn't quite been right until probably two days ago and I found a little something and everything just clicked in. It changes where you meet the ball to hit the ball in certain places. Just slight things and bits of rhythm aren't quite right,” Smith added.

Steve Smith did not bat for a considerably longer period of time and blamed it for taking a long time in ironing out this chink in his batting technique which is unique in so many ways. He expressed immense happiness on being able to find that old sort of feeling while batting after finding the perfect rhythm at the batting crease.

“It's taken me a lot longer than usual, I don't know why … I pretty much didn't bat for four months at the start of COVID. So whether it's taken me a bit longer to get them back, I don't know but I'm glad I've been able to find something in the last few days," Steve Smith concluded.

Steve Smith will be one of the mainstays of the Australian batting line up in the series against Australia and the Aussies will bank on him to post high scores to put the India team which will be without its best batsmen in the Test series.

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Tendulkar advices Indian bowlers to bowl fifth stump line to Steve Smith

The legendary Indian batsman who has been himself difficult to bowl to for hundreds of bowlers during his playing days reckons the Australian middle-order master Steve Smith too would be a tough nut to crack for the bowlers and hence a different ploy is needed to tackle him. Sachin advised the Indian bowlers to bowl the fifth stump line to Smith to get him to knick deliveries past the wicket. “Smith’s technique is unconventional...Normally, we tell a bowler in Test matches to bowl on and around off-stump or maybe fourth stump line. But for Smith, because he shuffles, maybe that line (of delivery) moves further away by four to five inches,” the Master Blaster said in an interview to PTI. “One has to aim between (imaginary) fourth and fifth stump for Steve to nick one. It’s just a mental adjustment of line, more than anything else,” he added. Tendulkar, 48, also said that he had read somewhere that Smith had said he was ready for the short-pitched stuff. In that scenario, the Mumbai born said that exploiting the fifth stump channel, on Australian pitches, which generally don’t offer as much swing like England, would be an ideal way to frustrate the New South Wales batter. “I think, he needs to be tested on and around that off-stump channel. Keep him on the back-foot and induce that early mistake. You can’t use saliva, so it’s a different case if wickets have a lot more life. I don’t know if they will have greenish wickets for the ball to do a little bit,” he said.

ICC to host decade awards soon; fans back Kohli to win Player of the Decade

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced that it would host the ICC decade awards this year, dates of which would be revealed soon. The ICC’s official Twitter handle gave a teaser of it, by posting s tweet with the caption, “Soon”. The decade awards would most likely involve all the ICC annual awards categories which would be given to players for their performers throughout the decade i.e.- 2010-2020, also termed as a moving decade in cricket with respect to the number of changes and the tilting of the most dominating team position from Australia to that of India. Fans reacting to this announcement by the international body claimed that Indian all-format captain and batting maestro Virat Kohli will win the award for Player of the Decade hands down. Virat,32, started his cricketing career in 2008 but reached the peak only after the 2011 World Cup which Team India won by beating Sri Lanka in the finals under the captaincy of India’s best captain in terms of trophy wins- Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Since then Virat has been named Player of the Tournament in two ICC World Cups and has scored the most number of runs, both as captain and as a player. Unfortunately, he has not been able to win an ICC tournament as captain of the Indian team.

India will be 'smoked' 4-0 if Virat Kohli doesn't set the tone: Michael Clarke

The fact that Virat Kohli’s absence from the Test series in Australia may well have a huge impact on the outcome of the series is known to all and now a former Australian captain Michael Clarke has painted a grim picture of the Kohli-less Indian Test team. The right-hander has said that Virat Kohli will have a huge role to play in setting the tone in the limited-overs leg of the tour and if he fails to deliver on that front, there will be no bouncing back from the men in blue in the captaincy of Ajinkya Rahane. He added that an unsuccessful series in white-ball format will land Indian team in deep trouble heading into the Test series and Australians will prove too strong for them. “These one-dayers and these Twenty20s is where Virat Kohli can really stand up and lead from the front. If India doesn’t have success in the One-dayers and the T20s, they are in deep trouble in the Test matches and they’ll get smoked 4-0, in my opinion. I think the tone he sets with this team will play a big role when he leaves, after the first Test match,” Clarke said on Sky Sports Radio. Apart from Virat Kohli, Clarke pinned India’s hopes on speedster Jasprit Bumrah who has been in terrific form throughout his career and was one of the brightest spots for the team on the last tour of Australia. He added that Bumrah has troubled opener David Warner in the past and he has the quality and pedigree to challenge the perpetually improving Steve Smith who has been a thorn in the Indians’ flesh in the previous series he played. He rated Bumrah as the best short-form bowler going around in the world along with an exceptional record in Test cricket. He suggested that Bumrah needs to be aggressive against the Aussie batting line which will make for a riveting contest in the Tests series starting December 17. “Opening bowler, probably the best short-form bowler in the world at the moment but his success in Test cricket has been exceptional as well. He’s quick, he’s got a really different action, so I think he needs to set the tone and be really aggressive to the Australian batters. Again, it’s not just about the wickets he takes, it’s how he bowls. He’s got Davey Warner’s measure at the moment, he’s got him out a number of times. Even to someone like Steve Smith, he’s got to use that short ball consistently and regularly, like Jofra Archer did to Steve Smith in the Ashes. They’ve got to take the Aussies on and those two players are India’s best two players to be aggressive to the Australians,” Clarke added on his outlook of the Indian team’s chances against Australia which has come back to ist full strength with the return of David Warner and Steve Smith who were missing from the team during the last series. The Indian team has been jolted by injury concerns to its marquee players such as Rohit Sharma and Ishant Sharma while Virat Kohli will return home for the birth of his first child. However, the absence of these star players will give the perfect opportunity to players sitting on the fringe for so long to come into reckoning and make a name for themselves.

Aus vs Ind | Rohit, Ishant ruled out of first two Tests: Report

Opener Rohit Sharma and pacer Ishant Sharma are all but ruled out of at least the first two Tests of the four-Tests match series against Australia scheduled to begin on December 17. However, their participation in the last two Tests of the series that are scheduled only in January 2021 will depend on how quickly the National Cricket Academy consider them match fit for Test matches and BCCI manages logistics. Out of the two, Ishant Sharma’s case in more precarious than Rohit’s as the pacer might as well run out of time for the Third Test as well as he will need a workload of four weeks to prepare for a Test match and keeping in mind the quarantine norms being imposed on people entering Australia, he will have to board the flight to Australia in order to spend six weeks before he can claim a place in the playing XI. On the other hand, Rohit Sharma is not very close to the full fitness deemed required to play a Test match and is likely to be cleared to travel down under only in the second week of December and adding the two weeks period of quarantine, he will be able to join the training of the Indian team only after December 22 which will rule him out of all the warm-up games and the first Test. The Selection Committee had named both Ishant and Rohit under the watchlist of the BCCI medical team and said that a call will be taken on the duo and Rohit was added to the Test squad while Ishant remained on the watchlist. The absence of both Ishant and Rohit along with the return of Virat Kohli will deplete the composition of the India team massively and it will open up holes in all the aspects of the game. Meanwhile, some unconfirmed media reports have claimed that the team management led by the captain Virat Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri has asked for the inclusion of right-handed Shreyas Iyer in place of Rohit Sharma in case he misses out. Iyer has a strong record in domestic cricket to stake a claim in the Test squad and his presence in the white-ball squads will boost his chances of selection looking at the restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.