India vs Australia: Quirky Steve Smith not guilty of gamesmanship, says skipper Tim Paine | Cricket News – Times of India

SYDNEY: Steve Smith was not erasing Rishabh Pant‘s guard within the batting crease throughout the third Test between Australia and India on Monday however merely indulging one of his many idiosyncrasies, his captain Tim Paine stated on Tuesday.
Video footage from the stump digicam of Smith dragging his boot throughout the crease on a tense closing day of the match went viral on social media and a few former gamers accused him of gamesmanship at greatest, dishonest at worst.
Paine stated Smith, who was stripped of the Australian captaincy and banned for a 12 months in 2018 for his half within the Newlands ball-tampering scandal, had been upset by the allegations.
“I know he’s really disappointed with the way it’s come across,” Paine advised reporters on Tuesday.

“If you’ve watched Steve Smith play test cricket, that’s something that he does every single game five or six times a day.
“He’s at all times standing within the batting crease shadow batting. As we all know, he is acquired these many Steve Smith quirks and one of these is he is at all times marking centre.
“He was certainly not changing (Pant’s) guard and if he was, that’s something that the Indians would have kicked up a bit stink about at the time.”
Pant’s heroic knock of 97 set the platform for India to save lots of the Test after being set a frightening goal of 407 to win, with Hanuma Vihari and Ravichandran Ashwin thwarting Australia’s assault over the past three hours to safe a draw.

Paine, who additionally apologised for his personal conduct throughout the third Test, stated Smith might need to surrender the follow given the way it was interpreted.
“It’s one of his mannerisms, he does it a lot, he was marking centre he wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination trying to change guard or anything like that,” he added.

“It’s something that he might need to look at because of the perception of it.”