Game plan was to play as straight as I could: Adam Voges

While batsmen crumbled to the spin on the Pallekele wicket, Adam Voges, and Mitchell Marsh were perhaps the only players who looked somewhat at ease on the seemingly diabolical surface. Stats suggested that Adam Voges required just 63 odd runs to conclude on an average of 100, a few decimal points behind the great Don Bradman. However, lady luck simply did not smile on Voges as he was dismissed for a well-made 47. Neither batsman on both sides has reached a half-century yet in this series.

Allan Border, the former Australian captain, described Smith’s dismissal as a “brain explosion”. But Voges said Smith’s aggressiveness simply “didn’t come off”.

“We talk about taking risks early to try and spread the field and then getting ones,” he said after rain washed out the final session on Wednesday (July 27). “He tried to take that risk early. If it comes off, it looks great.

“I think we felt one or two partnerships, or those couple of partnerships that did get going, making them bigger,”Voges added. “If we had done that, we probably have a 100-run plus lead and feeling like we are driving the game. (It was)a little bit of a missed opportunity today, but some good starts, but we know in these conditions we want to be getting bigger scores and bigger partnerships.”

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“It’s a tricky one (the pitch),” Voges said. “Noone has really mastered it yet over these two days. It’s tough going. It’s hard to score on, particularly with in-outfields and your boundary options are quite limited.

Speaking about the way he went about batting on the surface, Voges said that he made an attempt to play the ball as straight as possible. “You know you are going to have to face a lot of balls but we expected that coming into this Test. It’s probably just the inconsistencies around the bounce and spin – some do, some don’t, some bounce a bit more than others, some keep a bit low. I kept my game plan pretty simple: play as straight as I could and bat for as long as I could.”

“I just said to the guys to keep looking for his leg-spinner and then you will hopefully notice there is something that is a little bit different, which was what I was trying to do,” he said.

“We have a good lead and we have one-second innings wicket,” he said. “Like I said, Noone has really mastered this wicket with the bat yet, so tomorrow morning (Thursday)is going to be a crucial session.”

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