‘Outplayed in every facet of the game’ – Smith

Australia’s mystified captain Steven Smith apologised to travelling supporters for having to witness an ugly 3-0 defeat, before saying the touring batsmen and spin bowlers had a lot of thinking to do about their cricket in Asian conditions ahead of next year’s trip to India.

The visiting batsmen fell in an unruly heap on the final day of the series after reaching a platform of 100 for 1, mirroring their first innings slide from 267 for 1 to 379 all out. Smith, who was out when trying to cut Rangana Herath off the stumps for the second time in the series, said recurring problems for the batsmen and the spinners Nathan Lyon and Jon Holland were the major problems to arise from a contest in which the pacemen Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood had done well.

“It’s a hard one to grasp really, it’s been a very tough series again, that is our third straight whitewash loss in the subcontinent,” Smith said. “What we are doing isn’t working. Batters aren’t adapting to the conditions, spin bowlers aren’t adapting to the conditions. I can’t fault our quicks, I thought they did a great job, particularly Starc, but our batters and spinners are the ones who have to step up in these conditions and we haven’t been able to do that.

“We have been outplayed in every facet of the game, our plans haven’t worked as individuals or as a collective group, we haven’t been able to put Sri Lanka under as much pressure as we would have …

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