Smith denies allegations of being scuffed the guard of Rishabh Pant: India vs Australia.
Key sentence:
- A video of Smith, filmed by the stump camera, shows dragging his boot across the crease.
- In sports, it’s something I do to imagine where we’re bowling, how the batter plays our bowlers, and instead, I still mark the centre out of habit.
- With Hanuma Vihari as well as Ashwin stymieing Australia’s attack throughout the last three hours to secure a draw.
During the third Test towards India at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Australian batsman Steve Smith dismissed accusations of scuffing Rishabh Pant’s guard at the batting crease.
Smith has seen dragging his boot across the crease:
On social media, a video of Smith, filmed by the stump camera, surfaced where the Australian batter can be seen on the last day of the game dragging his boot across the crease. Smith was accused of tarnishing the sport by a few former cricketers, such Virender Sehwag as well as Michael Vaughan. Smith says that he had been labelling the centre as he often does, responding to the whole episode.
As Smith stated to News Corp:
The former Australian captain claimed in discussion with News Corp on Tuesday that he was “shocked as well as disappointed” by reports he had sought to achieve an unfair advantage. In sports, it’s something I do to imagine where we’re bowling, how the batter plays our bowlers, and instead, I still mark the centre out of habit. It’s such a disappointment that this among other events took away yesterday from what was India’s fantastic batting performance,’ Smith told News Corp.
Tim Paine during the Virtual Press conference:
Australian Test captain Tim Paine protected Smith earlier on Monday, saying whether the latter has merely indulged in one of his several idiosyncrasies.
If you’ve seen Steve Smith playing Test Cricket, that’s what he does five or six times a day in every single match. He’s still standing playing in the shadow of the batting crease. As we know, he has many of the quirks of Steve Smith, and one of those is that he’s still the centre of marking,’ Paine said that during the online press conference.
He definitely didn’t change (Pant’s) guard, and if it was something that the Indians might have kicked up a bit of a stink about from the time,” he continued.”
Pant sets the stage for team India:
With Hanuma Vihari as well as Ashwin stymieing Australia’s attack throughout the last three hours to secure a draw, Pant’s spectacular knock of 97 set the stage for India to save the Test after already being set a challenging target of 407 to victory.
