Australia batter Steve Smith admitted his side was simply outplayed by Bangladesh in all three departments after suffering a historic nine-wicket defeat in the opening Test of the two-match series at Marrara Oval on Sunday.
“They got too many in front, and we weren’t able to catch it up yesterday on what was a pretty decent wicket to bat on. “Pretty simple: we were outplayed. I thought Bangladesh bowled really well the first morning, really disciplined. Smith admitted Australia failed to build partnerships despite several batters getting starts. A couple of us got starts and didn’t go on with it.
Our batters probably weren’t disciplined enough,” Smith said after Australia suffered their first Test defeat of the series as quoted by The Daily Star. Greeny, I thought, played really nicely to get a hundred, but he didn’t have any partners to go with him,” he said.
Smith felt Australia needed a substantially bigger lead to remain competitive in the Test. Green’s 104 provided Australia with their biggest resistance in the second innings, but Bangladesh’s Mehidy Hasan Miraz claimed 5-52 to dismantle the Australian middle and lower order, while Hasan Mahmud finished with match figures of 9-111. The defeat marked only Australia’s second Test loss to Bangladesh, with their previous defeat coming in Dhaka in 2017. It also handed Bangladesh a 1-0 lead in the two-match series and ensured they cannot lose the series.
“We needed probably 200 at least plus to be in the game there,” he said.
Despite the big defeat, Smith backed Australia to bounce back and insisted the result should not overshadow their sustained performances as the world’s top-ranked Test side. “I hope it’s one bad week. We’re the number one team for a reason. Smith also gave full credit to Bangladesh for their performance throughout the four-day Test.
We’ve played really good, consistent cricket over a long period of time, and this week was a bit of a blip,” he said. “We could have done things a lot better, but credit goes to them for the way they played throughout these last four days,” he said.
