3rd ODI: Planned To Make Australia Play In Straight Lines Against Me, Reveals India Pacer Shardul Thakur | Cricket News

After registering a 13-run win over Australia in the third and final ODI, India pacer Shardul Thakur on Wednesday said that he came up with a plan to make the Australian batsmen play in straight lines against him. This was the first match for Shardul in this ODI series against Australia, and the pacer did not disappoint as he went on to scalp three wickets, including the crucial breakthrough of Steve Smith. “See, the important part was to stick to our lengths in this match. If you see the series, Australian batsmen have played pull and cut shots quite a bit, I just tried to keep them off those shots and I was trying to make them play in the straighter lines. This plan worked for me,” said Shardul while replying to a query during the post-match press conference.

Talking about the dismissal of Steve Smith, Shardul said: “See, I feel sometimes that we get lucky. When we try to execute the plans, we wanted to keep them on the backfoot and win this game, we were planning to bowl at the stumps when Smith was batting, I got lucky that I strangled him down the legside, he is a top player, it was a huge wicket for us. Winning this game to carry the momentum in the T20I series was important.”