He said that Smith would undercut Tim Paine much like other players in the past.
Just recently, Australia ended their dominant performance over Pakistan. They showed the world that they are still one of the world’s cricket powerhouses. After winning the first match of the series by an innings and then some, they followed up that one with a similar performance to win the series 2-0. That was also the 14th consecutive loss Pakistan had suffered in Australia.
Last year, Australia had a pretty tough year in Tests due to a ban on David Warner and former captain Steve Smith. It was up to Tim Paine to lead the team past that problem and then once again when the two returned. When they did, they were at it again, dominating opponents.
However, former captain Ian Chappell had created a storm when he said Steve Smith ‘undermined’ Tim Paine during the Adelaide Test when he changed the fields set by the skipper. Smith responded, saying that he was only helping Paine.
‘I only try and help Tim as much as I can. He’s doing a terrific job, but I give him suggestions and things like that. I only want the team to do well. I’m certainly not undermining him’.
Chappell then compared Smith with former England cricketers who would do the same. ‘I tell you what I don’t like to see, Steve Smith is moving a few fieldsmen around. He did have a chat with Tim Paine, trying to talk Tim Paine into moving a fielder on the off-side, but I’m not sure Tim Paine moved him as far as Steve Smith wanted. Steve Smith started moving him, I hate to see that. England used to do it a bit, blokes other than the captain and I always felt it was white-anting the captain’.
Tim Paine, who didn’t mind the whole thing, was happy with his team’s performance. In an interview, he said that ‘I thought we played some really good cricket for all the series. Barring the fielding yesterday I thought all of our cricket was good. We’re starting to get the contributions from our top order we have asked for for a little while’.
Australia will face New Zealand in three Tests, followed by India with three ODIs. To find out more about Australia’s and other teams upcoming matches, visit Betwala’s page.
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