Anderson: Getting Smith will be crucial

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England fast bowler James Anderson feels that the wicket of Steve Smith will be crucial if they are to beat Australia in Adelaide.

Smith was the only batsman to ton up in Brisbane, though England were able to restrict his run scoring for periods.

Anderson was not prepared to say that England’s plans for the Aussie skipper failed but admitted that there were some things that they needed to rethink.

The fast bowler told reporters: “I just think you’ve almost got to take him out of the picture when you’re bowling because if your eyeline is watching him and what he’s doing then I think it really distracts you from where you want the ball to go.

“You’ve got to really try and almost blank him out and really focus on where you want the ball to go.

“Obviously, the plans to him, I wouldn’t say they didn’t work, but we didn’t get him out, so they worked to an extent.

“We dried his runs up and made him work really hard for his hundred but obviously we want to get him out.

“He was the difference between the two teams. That first-innings lead would’ve been huge for us.

“So, getting him out here will be crucial. Hopefully more pace in the wicket might help us, but we’ve just got to be as relentless as we possibly can to someone like that.”

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In looking for positives Anderson says that England’s plans for the Australia batsmen for the most part worked well with Smith being the difference between the teams.

He added: “The encouraging thing for us is we came up with plans to all their batsmen before the series started and probably 70 per cent of the them worked.

“For us that’s encouraging, we can build on that.

“But there’s still that small matter of someone getting 140 which we need to deal with.

“We know the dangers of David Warner at the top as well, so we’ve got to keep working hard at getting those guys out because we know how pivotal they are in their line-up.”

The day/night Test in Adelaide gets underway on Saturday (December 2).

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