Not enforcing the follow-on gave Steve Smith a sleepless night

Team Australia registered an emphatic 120 run win over the visiting English side in the second Ashes Test. With the win, the Steve Smith led side now has a lead of 2-0 with 3 games to play. Needless to concede, the skipper was a very happy man after the game. However, all was not well for Smith during the course of this Test match.

Steve Smith, who was the hero with the bat in the first Test, could not perform to his reputation in the second match. Also, he missed out on two DRS calls and even dropped a crucial catch in the match. But above all, his decision to not enforce the follow-on on the English side was something that did not go down well with the pundits of the game.

As per the quotes in the Indian Express, Steve Smith admitted that he had a sleepless night after making the call. He went on to introspect for a long time to validate his decision. However, he is now happy to see the end result and all those decisions do not really matter in the context of the series.

“I had to have a sleeping pill last night. It has been a pretty tough 24 hours if I’m being honest. It’s all part of being captain of your country. You have to make difficult decisions and sometimes you’re going to make the wrong decision,” quoted Steve Smith.

“I’ll think back and reflect over the next day or so and think what I could have perhaps done differently and could have done better, and areas that I can continue to improve in my leadership. At the end of the test match we will review that,” he added.

“Fortunately, we’re able to hang in there and get the result we were after. It doesn’t make any difference anymore,” he added further.

Root on his erred call

Meanwhile, English skipper Joe Root also made a blip by getting it wrong at the toss. He invited the Australian team to bat first in the match. Commenting on his call to bowl first, Root said that he has no regrets about his decision. He mentioned that he wanted to give his bowlers the best shot at taking 10 wickets.

“There are lots of things that you look back on and maybe do differently, but that wasn’t one of them. I don’t actually (regret it), you want to give your bowlers the best chance to take 10 wickets and in those conditions with the quality that we have I fully expected those guys to take 10 wickets,” said Joe Root.