Australia successfully chased down the goal of 76 and defeated India on Day 3 of the third Test at the Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore, winning the match by nine wickets. Pat Cummins, who had to fly back home to deal with his ill mother, delegated the captaincy to Steve Smith for the game.
Sanjay Manjrekar, a former cricketer for India, was very impressed with Smith’s tactical choices during the game, which greatly benefited Australia. He specifically gave him credit for using Starc to attack Shreyas Iyer, a skilled spinner. “Great captaincy too from Australia’s Steve Smith in the way he got Starc into the attack. They realized Iyer is so good against spin, let’s try him against pace,” said Manjrekar on Star Sports.
Manjrekar further said that he was disappointed to see Jadeja come ahead of Shreyas Iyer in both innings. “It has just disappointed me in the past and this inning as well that Jadeja came ahead of Shreyas Iyer. You can’t be doing that for a left-right combination. You’ve got a proper batter, even if he is a right-hander,” said Manjrekar.
According to Manjrekar, Australia had two excellent off-spinners bowling rather than two or three left-arm spinners, hence placing Jadeja ahead of Iyer was unnecessary because the right-hander is a skilled spinner. “And Jadeja coming in as a left-hander, I can understand when you have 2-3 left-arm spinners like Bangladesh used to have in the past. Here you have two quality off-spinners bowling. It did not make any sense to me. Iyer has a great feel for spinners so you want him ahead in the line-up. And he has shown his class,” the 57-year-old further said.
