ICC Cricket World Cup 2019: Steve Smith Responds to Virat Kohli’s Gesture During India vs Australia

Former Australia captain, Steve Smith was admittedly touched when India captain, Virat Kohli beseeched the crowd to not boo Smith. Admittedly, the hostile fans did not hold a very high opinion of Steve Smith or his teammate, David Warner.

Their hostility was justified, as the two, then Captain and Vice-captain, were involved in a ball-tampering scandal. As a punishment, both players were stripped of their ranks and banned for a year. Now, both Smith and Warner have served their sentences and are eager to put the ugly incident behind them.

Unfortunately, the fans not in a mood to let the two forget about it in a hurry. While the IPL was a relatively quiet affair, the problems began in the buildup to the World Cup. However, when Australia took on India, India skipper Virat Kohli earned the respect of nearly every Australian.

At the time, Smith was positioned near the boundary during Australia’s loss to India at The Oval. Unfortunately, that section of the crowd started chanting “cheater, cheater” during the game. However, Virat Kohli, who was batting, quickly put a stop to it by clapping towards Smith and gestures at the crowd.

Speaking to the media after the mach and Kohli’s gesture of solidarity, Smith said, “Yeah, it was a lovely gesture. It doesn’t really bother me what the crowd do to be perfectly honest, I’m just sort of blocking it all out but it was a lovely gesture from Virat, that’s for sure.”

Interestingly enough, Steve Smith has not let the negative vibes deter him in any way. Instead, he has used the booing to further his morale. Three half centuries in 5 matches, is more proof of his good form of late.

“When you’ve got off to a good start and you’ve got wickets in the shed, you’ve got to keep trying to take the game on,” Smith continued. “I think that’s where you get your 350-pluses. I think if you’ve sat back and let the game get away from you and try and do too much at the back end, some days it can come off and you can go at 12-plus an over at the back end, but there are a lot of specialty bowlers who bowl at the back end and can be difficult to get away.

“If you just keep that run rate going and playing with a positive mindset and slightly aggressive, with wickets in the shed, that’s where you get your 350-pluses. We probably didn’t quite finish off as we should have [against Sri Lanka], lost a few quick wickets in clumps again. But I thought [Glenn Maxwell] Maxi came in and did his job. If we keep giving those guys up top [support] and the top four getting big hundreds, you go a long way to winning games.”

Smith also admitted that he has no plans to retake the Australian team’s captaincy. In any case, he will not be eligible until another year had passed.