R Ashwin picks the wicket of Steve Smith in Melbourne on Saturday.
Steve Smith came into the Australia vs India series with lone biggest batting name for the Australian but three innnings and two Test matches into the high-octained tournament, the Aussie no. 1 batsman is still finding it hard to score big.
Interestingly, the 31-year-old right hander has find it tough to deal with Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who has now outfoxed him twice over space of eight deliveries with no runs to his name.
After scoring just one run in the Pink-ball Adelaide Test second innings, when Ashwin bowled him with an outstanding delivery, Smith was this time out for a duck for the first time in first innings in his career.
And unlike Adelaide, this time Smith fell prey to Ashwin in a well thought-out plan by setting a leg side trap. The highly-rated batsman had an inside edge wich was duly caught by an alert Cheteshwar Pujara at leg slip by diving towards his left.
Speaking of the dismissal after the day, Gavaskar felt Ashwin bowled smartly by bowling straight to the middle or leg stump, with the intent of not allowing them to play on the offside.
“First and foremost, I’m pretty surprised at the fact that on Day 1 there’s a lot of turn for the Indian spinners. He’s been bowling straight, he’s been bowling on the middle and leg, it’s been pretty much a plan to try and restrict the batsmen from playing any shot through the off side. If you look at Smith’s dismissal because maybe he was on zero he wanted to get off the mark, wasn’t able to control it. On the other hand, there were a couple of deliveries when Labuschagne was playing and he shouldered arms, Smith could’ve done that as well but I’m not complaining,” Gavaskar told 7 cricket.
