(Cricket news) Steve Smith stepped in as captain for the 3rd Test at Indore in Pat Cummins absence. Australia ended up winning the Test pretty convincingly by 9 wickets. Smith did an incredible job as captain with his bowling changes and field placements. It has been announced that Smith will be the captain for the 4th Test in Ahmedabad as well as Pat Cummins will continue to stay home due to family reasons. Tactically at least on the field Smith is looking like a much more secure and a better captain. Cummins has been successfull as Australia’s Test captain but Steve Smith may just have the edge. 

When asked if he had the desire to become a full time captain again he said that this is still Cummins’ team and he is only a stand in captain. Thinking about it from a rational point of view, the better captain should be the first choice but because of Smith’s history in his original spell as a captain it is difficult to make him captain again.

On top of that Cummins hasn’t done anything wrong to be sacked. The focus will be on Steve Smith in the Ahmedabad Test as he will have the golden opportunity of drawing the series after being 2-0 down. India haven’t lost a Test series at home since 2013 against England and the team that has come the closest is Steve Smith’s Australia in 2017.

It will be interesting to see how Australia go about things in Ahmedabad. The Indore pitch had a lot of turn from day 1 as ICC gave the pitch a poor ranking. There are reports that the Ahmedabad pitch will be seam friendly. If that does happen than the likes of Scott Bolland and Lance Morris come into play for Australia. India would be hoping that they can repeat the performance of the first two Tests as their World Test Championship qualification depends on it.

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