Rashid Latif pulls up Steve Smith for 'inability to accelerate'

New Delhi, Jan 20: While pundits have spoken highly about Steve Smith's ninth ODI century in the third ODI against India in Bengaluru on Sunday, former Pakistan skipper Rashid Latif has called it a failure on part of the former Australia skipper to accelerate and give the visitors a top gear finish in the death overs.

In fact, Latif also credited Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah for keeping things tight in the last 10 overs of the Australia innings as they picked wickets to peg back the visitors.

"One has to give credit to Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah for their efforts in the death overs. 80 balls for 80 chalte hain, but when you score 131, you need to do it in 100 or 105 balls. Smith's inability to accelerate and his slow partnership forced Australia to promote Mitchell Starc as a pinch hitter," Rashid Latif said in his YouTube channel.

Australia skipper Aaron Finch blamed the final score to losing wickets at regular intervals. "We just keep losing one wicket too many at every stage of the game. Our momentum gets stalled, but it's a great learning curve to play against the best in the world in their conditions," he explained.

India skipper Virat Kohli lauded the boys and said that it was one of the most satisfying series wins for his team as they beat Australia in the final ODI to take the series 2-1.

"They are even better than last time when they came. There's Steve and David (Warner) in the team now and Marnus (Labuschagne) as well, a quality bowling attack, really intense in the field," he said.

"We lost after 2-0 in the last series so coming back and winning the last two games in this series is a great sign for us. 2020 has been wonderful, and we just want to go onwards and upwards. This is probably one of the more satisfying wins considering we lost at home to them the last time."