Steve Smith is set to captain Australia in a Test match against India for the first time since 2017 with regular skipper Pat Cummins set to miss the third Test of the ongoing four-match series. Smith was captain of the team the last time Australia toured India for a Test series in 2016/17. It was a rather dramatic series with tempers flaring on a number of occassions between the two sets of players and Smith himself was involved in one of the most famous controversies to have come out of the series.
Then India captain Virat Kohli had angrily remonstrated with the umpire after Smith seemed to be looking to the dressing room before deciding whether to review a decision that went against him while batting during the second Test. Players are not allowed to consult their dressing rooms in any way while deciding on a DRS call and Smith later admitted that he had made a mistake. “It was a bit of a brain fade on my behalf and I shouldn’t have done that,” he said.
Kohli, on the other hand, said that he did not agree that it was a brain fade moment as he had seen the Australians do it multiple times before he decided to alert the umpire. A lot has changed since that series, with Smith losing his captaincy and serving out a one-year ban from all cricket due to the 2018 Newlands ball tampering scandal, but fans recalled the dramatic sequence of events of the 2016/17 series after it was announced that the 33-year-old is set to lead Australia again. Many also think that Smith's return as captain could spice things up in a series in which India have largely dominated.
Australia have conceded the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for a fourth consecutive time after their six-wicket loss in the second Test. While they challenged India far more in the second match than they did in the first, the batting lineup collapsed within a session on the third day of the match and they went 2-0 down in the four-Test series.
{{/usCountry}}Australia have conceded the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for a fourth consecutive time after their six-wicket loss in the second Test. While they challenged India far more in the second match than they did in the first, the batting lineup collapsed within a session on the third day of the match and they went 2-0 down in the four-Test series.
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