Among the Australian batsmen who have scored a century on debut as captain is the great Greg Chappell. Steven Smith joined the elite list here on Friday.
Interestingly, Chappell, who made a century in each innings against Clive Lloyd’s West Indians, also conjured the effort at the ’Gabba.
Smith’s sixth Test hundred, in an adverse situation for his team, is a knock he will remember for long.
The 25-year-old Aussie said here on Friday, “As I said earlier, I want to lead from front with my performances. Hopefully, I have done that in this innings.”
Smith added, “Individual performances do not matter as long as your team does not do well.”
Asked about Mitchell Johnson’s blitzkrieg, Smith said, “Mitch (Mitchell Johnson) came out and took it to the Indian bowling with some terrific cricket to give us a lead of 90-odd runs. To be fair whole tail batted beautifully to get us over the 500 mark.”
He lavished praise on Johnson. “Mitch was positive from ball one. They (the Indians) tried to get aggressive with him, tried bowling short, he got stuck into it and it worked in his favour. He took them on and they did not have an answer for him to be honest.”
On the conversations between the Indians and Johnson, Smith said, “Rohit (Sharma) and Mitch had some banter, not too sure what it was.”
Probed about the surface, the Aussie captain said, “It (the pitch) sped up a little bit each day as it does here. Think the wicket is playing good, there haven’t been any tricks. If you get in here, it’s one of the best places to bat.”
Smith said the heat could have taken its toll on the Indians. “It’s tough in this heat. We faced it while bowling in our innings with a couple of bowlers going down. Heat and humidity really gets you out there. When the tail bats like that, it’s nightmare for opposition.”
Despite Brad Haddin’s lack of runs, Smith said the wicket-keeper batsman’s spot was secure. “He’s a quality performer. There should be runs for him round the corner.”
Overdid the short ball
Umesh Yadav admitted it was India’s plan to bowl short and be aggressive with the Australian tail. “Sometimes in a match you can get aggressive. Sometimes batsman gets runs in that aggressive phase and sometimes it bothers him and he gets out.
“So you pick wickets. Perhaps we overdid it.”
The paceman, who scalped three in the Australian first innings, said, “In the morning the ball was a little soft and we decided to bowl line and length. We got a couple of wickets too. Then, when the tail-enders came, we decided to bowl short at them because of some difficulty they earlier had against the bouncers. There is bounce in these Australian wickets. Johnson connected his shots. It happens.”
On India struggling against the lower order in recent times, he said it was a part of the game. “We have been trying our best.”
