‘I missed a full toss’ – Smith rues Australia’s missed opportunities

Smith says his dismissal was a crucial moment in Australia’s semi-final loss to India

“I missed a full toss. It wasn’t ideal.” This is one of the greatest contemporary batters speaking on a moment that swung the match in India’s favour. Steven Smith was batting on 73 in the 37th over, and seemed set to guide Australia into the death overs.

Then he ran at Mohammed Shami, got a full toss at around knee-height, and missed it completely. The off stump was rattled.

From there, Australia got 66 runs off the 75 balls available to them. Alex Carey hit a fantastic 61 off 57, batting with the tail in later stages. Nathan Ellis tried to crash some late boundaries. But if you are looking for a moment in the match that paved the way for India’s dominance, this is a big one.

“My plan was to try and put the seamers under a bit more pressure, and just rotate the spin,” Smith said after the match. “But I didn’t do it very well. I lost my wicket at probably a crucial stage. Had I batted a little deeper, we could have potentially got up to near 300 or something. Alex was batting really nicely at the other end. It was a disappointing time to get out, but that’s the game sometimes.”Australia only set India 265 for victory. But given this was likely the most batting-friendly surface at this venue for the whole tournament, Smith rued the chance to go big.

Steven Smith was bowled by a full toss•Associated Press

“I think we had our opportunities throughout to post something up above 300,” Smith said. “We were probably just that one wicket down too many, at a few stages throughout the innings. If we extended one of those partnerships a little bit we’re probably getting up to 290 to 300 and we’re putting a bit of pressure on the scoreboard.

“The square block as a whole, I think, has seen a lot of cricket over the last couple of months. We can see it’s pretty tired and that’s probably the reason why we haven’t seen a score above 300 in the tournament here. So far so we did a reasonable job, but we probably just lacked a couple of those partnerships just dragging out a little bit further.”

Australia were also poor in the field. They dropped Rohit Sharma twice, and Virat Kohli was put down on 51. All of these were tough chances, however.

“I think when you’re trying to squeeze the game and you’re trying to build a lot of pressure, you need to take those chances when you’ve got 260 on the board,” Smith said. “But that’s the game, it happens. No one means to drop a catch. It’s part of the game.”