'Getting success against Steven Smith is a good thing but he will bounce back stronger: New Zealand coach Gary Stead

New Zealand lost the series opener of three-match Test series against Australia by a margin of 296 runs. But one thing in which they succeeded was to dismiss Steve Smith early in the game. Smith could only muster 43 and 16 runs in successive innings. And, Gary Stead, the Kiwi Head coach, feels that it was the biggest positive that they can take from their defeat in Perth but the former Aussie skipper will surely look to bounce back stronger in the upcoming games.

Steve Smith, the former Australian skipper is one of the best Test batsmen across the world. He was simply remarkable in the Ashes 2019 where he ended up being the leading scorer of the prestigious tournament. Ahead of the series against New Zealand, Smith was ranked as the number one batsman in Test cricket. But after a poor show in Perth, the Aussie batsman has dropped to second in the latest ICC Test rankings.

New Zealand head coach opines on his bowlers’ performance after Perth Test

Gary Stead said that dismissing Steve Smith less than his carrier average is a great thing to achieve. In every match, no one can dismiss the Aussie batsman early in the match. However, the head coach feels that Smith is a hard-working lad, who will figure out how to cope up with his weakness. Hence, New Zealand should be ready with some other plans as well and execute it well on the field.

He also added that all the bowlers executed their plans well but they need to attain consistency in it. Moreover, they tried the same strategy during the World Cup 2019 and they are in discussions to come up with some new plans going into the boxing day Test.

“Any time you get Steve Smith out for less than his average is probably a good thing but it’s only one match and I know he was in the nets every day. He’ll try and work out ways to combat what we do and we have to have other plans if that doesn’t work for us.

“Having plans is one thing but you have to execute them over a long period and one thing I’m proud of is our guys stuck at plans we thought were right; with Steve, it worked in particular. If you look at the World Cup as well, we tried that tactic, so I suspect we’ll be discussing [that plan] and other ones if he is able to handle, but certainly something I think we’ll keep pursuing,” Gary Stead said as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.

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