We lost so much momentum with Smith and Finch got out in quick time.
Also I've found Smith's captaincy lacking a bit. Agar was getting absolutely pongoed, why not give Head or Maxwell a celebrity over to shake things up a bit?
Just watched the second innings and came here to say exactly this.
We lack leadership and a killer instinct and we wind up drifting out of games, and I do think a good bit of that comes from the captain. As well as other senior players.
Big moment and probably the losing of the game was losing Finch, Smith and Maxwell in quick succession. Not only did we go from 1/224 to 4/243, but we lost all our senior batsmen. It sounds harsh on Finch and he shoulders a lot less of the blame given his score, but he still played a poor shot as did Smith, and Maxwell got out in disgraceful fashion. At the end of the day 320 might have been enough and at 1/224 that should have been a canter but our senior players didn't take the game in hand and exposed a young middle order in a tough situation. It's not easy to come out and just flay it around.
I have absolutely no idea why Smith went to Agar so often when Pandya was carving him up. At one stage he'd faced 20 balls from Agar and taken him for 40. You've gotta try Head or Maxwell and even just see if they go for fewer runs. And Stoinis is getting too many overs as well, he's handy on surfaces that suit him but on a road he's just not quick or canny enough to worry batsmen and he concedes easy runs.
I also thought he should have bowled Cummins more earlier. We needed to bowl India out, if they got past the 40th over with wickets in hand it was pretty much all over after the start they got so there really was little point thinking about the death overs early on. He did kinda get the message later in the innings but it was a bit late by then, even though we did get a couple.
I think it needs to be mentioned that for a brilliant catcher Smith has been poor in that regard this series as well. He horribly misjudged the Pandya chance and that cost us a lot
Ultimately we have a young side and we haven't got the balance right yet but we were closer than it looked last night. We just lost key moments of the match and I reckon captaincy was one of the reasons this time. Smith is a great player but his captaincy sometimes looks formulaic and he never really seems to try anything outside the box.
