Smith reflects on criticised WT20 decisions

Cricket365
May 11, 2016

Australia captain Steve Smith has looked back on his side's early exit from the World Twenty20 in March, and says he could have made better calls when it came to spinner Adam Zampa's usage.

Smith came under fire for not giving Zampa all four of his overs in the match against India, which the Aussies lost, despite Zampa being the most effective bowler in the game.

The skipper, now at the IPL with Pune, said on the CA website: "Looking back at that game I should have bowled Zampa a few more overs.

"You go in and think when your guys are best to bowl, but you have to trust your instinct and gut when you actually bring them on.

"At the time Yuvraj (Singh) was in, he usually hits spin pretty well, so I thought to him in particular quicks were going to be the best.

"It didn't work out the way it was planned. But that's the game of cricket sometimes."

He was also asked about dropping opener David Warner down the batting order, and Smith defended the decision, saying that the batting flaws came from the middle order, not the top, and that the top four were fine.

Smith added: "I thought the top of our order played pretty well.

"Usman (Khawaja) got us off to a good start every game. He was in very good form, probably the most in-form batter in the Australian team in the past year or thereabouts.

"You could have gone all different ways. But I thought Warner is a good player. He was able to adjust and play well (at No.3) in South Africa – he plays spin well.

"Our middle order let us down. We got off to good starts in most of our games and the middle order, myself included, weren't up to the task in this particular World Cup."