Former England skipper Alastair Cook talked about Steve Smith’s pitch scuffling controversy that erupted during 3rd Test match at Sydney stating that it was blown out of proportion.
However he added that Smith was under the scanner due to his past history at South Africa where the ace batsman was caught in sandpaper scandal.
As Smith who was trying to scuffle Pant’s guard marks on the last day of the Sydney Test after which Pant has to take a fresh guard without knowing that his guard marks was scuffled. After a video went viral on social media, Smith was greeted with a lot of flak from the netizens.
“I think, given what’s happened [with Steve Smith], obviously everything is going to be talked about. I think like anything in a series when you try to put the opposition off, it’s been taken a little bit out of context, I’d imagine. Whether it is intentional or not, only he will know but, yeah, it only makes you more intrigued,” Cook was quoted as saying in an interview with RadioTimes.com on Thursday.
However Smith received Player of the match award for his knocks of 131 and 81 respectively and he was defended well by coach Langer and Captain Paine after the incident was caught on camera.
Cook, who retired from International cricket in 2018, lauded India for their outstanding performance against Kangaroos on Australian soil.
“England has some serious strength in depth to be able to go there and play well. You see India have done a job on them in this series and almost showed the way to play against this Australia side,” he stated.
“It’s not easy, but it’s proper grind cricket. India gave nothing away and eventually wore Australia down and full credit to them,” Cook added.
