Australia captain Steve Smith said that he was mentally drained by the time Australia played the final Test of their India tour earlier in 2017. Australia had won the first of the four match Test series but went on to lose the second and fourth to concede a 2-1 defeat, even though Smith was the highest run scorer in the series.
“I think I was in such good form and seeing the ball really well. I’d done a lot of batting in that series and even leading up to the last Test match, I hit an unusually low amount of balls before the game, because I just wanted to get in the middle and give everything I had left,” said Smith in an interview with ESPN Cricinfo.
“I was very mentally fatigued, and it was just about seeing the ball and hitting the ball in the last Test match, and not thinking too much,” he said, “I think at one point I hadn’t made 10 [yet] and I hit Umesh Yadav over cover for four, something I wouldn’t normally do in a Test match. It was a little bit bizarre. I was still fortunate enough to get a hundred. I wish I had a bit more in me to get a big score. I think that really would have helped the team, but I was so mentally drained that I just didn’t have anything left” he added.
