Australia’s leg spinner Steven Smith excited about playing under Michael Clarke's captaincy
Australia’s young leg spinner, Steven Smith, has expressed his excitement about playing under Michael Clarke’s captaincy and claimed that the new captain handles the spinners very efficiently.
Clarke replaced Ricky Ponting as the captain of the Australian team for Test cricket and One Day Internationals after the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.
Smith has played under Clarke in limited-overs cricket and claims that the new skipper understands the psychology of spinners better than most captains.
He feels that the primary reason for Clarke’s understanding with the spinners is the fact that he has been a close friend of Shane Warne over the years.
The leg spinner said that Clarke does not attack straightaway with the spinners and he gives some time to the bowlers to settle down before he starts to place fielders in attacking positions.
He said, "He's helped me out a lot. He's a big believer in giving a bit of protection when you start off and when you get into your spell bring your men in. Warne was a big believer in that as well. He thought if you had your men out and brought them in
you were attacking. If you had to push men out it felt like you were retreating and the batsmen were on top”.
The leg spinner has played five Test matches for his country so far but has failed to make any kind of an impression with the ball as he has just taken three wickets at a very expensive average.
Smith also admired the coaching skills of late Australian leg spinner, Terry Jenner, and called him a ‘genius’.
The leg spinner has worked with Jenner for some time and the legendary cricketer helped Smith remove deficiencies in his bowling action. He claimed that Jenner helped him become mentally stronger and those lessons are going to help him for the rest of his
career.
"He [Jenner] is an absolute genius at what he does. The sessions I had with him I learned a lot from and continue to learn a lot. There were a few things like tactics and trying to work out a batsman, looking at them even when you're not bowling to them”,
Smith added.
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