[ad_1]
India and Australia are gearing up to face each other in the most-awaited World Test Championship final at The Oval from June 7. Both the teams are busy sweating it out in the nets as they aim to add another coveted ICC trophy to their name. With only three days left for the marquee event, ICC had a fun activity with Team Australia, where all the players were asked to name the worst gift which they would like to give their star batter Steve Smith.
Majority of the players came up with a common answer, which was related to Smith’s batting. Notably, Smith celebrated his 34th birthday on June 2.
“Tell him training is cancelled or he is not allowed to bat,” Australia captain Pat Cummins said in a video posted by ICC on Instagram.
“I feel like it’s going to be said a lot, no batting for a week,” all-rounder Mitchell Marsh revealed.
“Get him something from Kmart,” Labuschagne said during Usman Khawaja‘s turn. “No batting for a day,” Matthew Renshaw said.
“You’re probably right, if he wasn’t allowed to hit balls today, he would have a bad birthday,” Starc agreed with his teammates.
“Probably a day off cricket training,” Scott Boland said.
Later, Smith was asked that who could give him the worst gift, then he said, “Probably, Marnus, he would get me something stupid I reckon.”
Smith is currently one of the best batters of Test cricket with a total of 8792 runs in 96 matches.
Recently, former captain Aaron Finch stated that he will put his money on Smith even though Australia will also need to get rid of star India batter Virat Kohli as early as possible during the WTC final.
“Both (Kohli and Smith) will be batting at number four, so the key is to try and get them as early as possible. Early wickets to expose them to the brand new ball will be absolutely key. I will always side with Steve Smith, I think his record is outstanding, but it will be a very good contest,” Finch told Star Sports.
(With PTI Inputs)
Topics mentioned in this article
[ad_2]
Source link