Steve Smith explains why Cam Green bowled less on Day 5: The Australian captain was hailed for managing his bowlers brilliantly on Day 5.
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Australia stand-in captain Steven Smith wasn’t nervous with the recently concluded second Ashes 2021-22 Test entering the final session in Adelaide.
Australia, who needed seven wickets to win the match on Day 5, were quick enough to send back Ollie Pope (4) and Ben Stokes (12) in the first hour of the day. However, England wicket-keeper batter Jos Buttler’s 227-ball stay had raised the draw for a miraculous English draw until he became a victim of a peculiar dismissal in the night session.
“I wouldn’t say nervous, [Jos] Buttler showed some resistance, he’s normally a bit of a dasher. But plenty of time and we thought a couple of good balls, a couple of wickets,” Smith told Fox Cricket during the post-match presentation ceremony.
Smith, who led Australia after more than three and a half years in regular captain Pat Cummins’ absence, admitted to having “fun” and “enjoying captaincy”. In what was Smith’s 19th Test victory as Australian captain, he was wax lyrical about his bowlers especially Mitchell Starc, who was their best bowler in the match with bowling figures of 43.1-16-80-6.
“I had fun this week. Enjoyed it [captaincy] and the guys played well, controlled the game from the first day, and declared where we wanted to declare, and bowl where we wanted to bowl. Mitchell Starc was exceptional and led the attack really well. He summed it up quickly, not a great deal of swing so bashed a good length, across the right-handers, in great rhythm and proud of how he went about his business,” Smith said.
Steve Smith explains why Cam Green bowled only four overs on Day 5
While there weren’t many grave errors in Smith’s captaincy in this match, he did made minds ponder by not bowling all-rounder Cameron Green until very late today.
Green, who has dismissed the likes of Joe Root (twice), Ollie Pope, Chris Woakes and Ben Stokes in the 34 overs that he’s bowled in the series, has impressed one and all with his knack of picking wickets. Being asked about Green’s absence from the bowling attack for a large part of the day on Monday, Smith mentioned that it was done to manage his workload.
“The guys [support staff] in there said Cam [Cameron] Green shouldn’t bowl at all today because his workload needs to be managed, held him back as long as I could. Ideally, we wouldn’t have bowled him today, but we needed him to bowl because of how good he has been,” Smith added.
In the four overs that Green bowled today, he gave away a solitary run in addition to bowling as many as three maiden overs.
