JOIN USSteve Smith is living a dream. The right-hander, anointed the captain of the Test side in the absence of Michael Clarke, not only presided over Australia winning the Border-Gavaskar Trophy but also emerged the highest run-getter in a series involving four Tests or fewer.
That he went past Sir Don Bradman’s aggregate of 713 in an India-Australia series spoke volumes about his growth as a batsman. The Australian skipper addressed the media after India hung on to a draw in the final Tests here. Excerpts.
On his thoughts on the draw: It would have been nice to get the win today. I thought 90 overs, with them having a little dip at us with the bat, we would be in a good chance to win this game but it wasn’t to be.
I think the wicket didn’t break up quite as much as I thought it would; there wasn’t much up and down movement with balls on the stumps. I think with Nathan into the rough, there were a few that hit the gloves and went straight into the ground. On a different day, those pop up and you get wickets. The boys toiled really hard today and they worked hard but disappointed not to get the result in the end.
On if 2-0 result is good enough: The wickets have been extremely flat and it's been tough to take 20 wickets. Throughout the series we probably let ourselves down a little bit in the field. Perhaps, if we'd taken a few more chances, it might be a little bit different. And they're not the standards we set as an Australian cricket team. We've got a lot of work to do on our fielding with the World Cup coming up, to get our standards up to where we want them to be.
On his captaincy: I've really enjoyed it. I've had a great time. All the boys have been terrific around the group. A lot of the senior players have been helping me out. The boys have done everything I've asked of them. They've worked their backsides off every day and I can't be prouder of them for the way they've performed throughout this series.
On his brilliant diving catch at slip to dismiss Rohit Sharma: It was one of those ones. Mark Taylor, I spoke to him yesterday, told me about three he dropped in Adelaide and he said they usually come in threes and I said 'thanks for the confidence Mark'. I managed to get a pretty simple one earlier in the game and then today it was one of those ones that just get stuck. There is nothing much else to it.