Australia’s Captain Steve Smith looks dejected after getting knocked out of ICC Champions Trophy. (Source: Reuters)
After Australia’s exit from the ICC Champions Trophy 2017, skipper Steve Smith said that a long season is no excuse for a poor performance by his side.
England defeated Australia by 40 runs on Saturday to knock them out of the tournament. Smith said that in a big tournament, players have to step up to do the job.
He said, “I didn’t get that feeling (and) that’s no excuse anyway. When you’re playing in a big tournament for your country, you need to step up and get the job done. We weren’t able to do that on this occasion, unfortunately.”
The 28-year-old said that Australia failed to find any momentum in the tournament and their campaign had been disappointing. “We had some frustrating games throughout and just haven’t been able to find any momentum, I guess. It was disappointing. You say that we only had one hit (heading into the England game), but that should be good enough for the players that we’ve got on our team.”
“We’ve got some good players in our line-up. We just weren’t able to get those partnerships together today and get ourselves a score up over 300.”
Ricky Ponting, who spoke from the commentary box, however blamed Australia’s long season for their poor form. He said, “The Australians all the way through this tournament they seemed a little flat, a little jaded. A lot of these players have been on the road since January for the Test series in India followed immediately by the IPL. A lot of the guys went straight from the IPL to the Champions Trophy. They’ve been on the road for four-five months, a lot of these Australian players.”