Australia's assistant coach Andrew McDonald rebuffed suggestions that premier batsman Steve Smith has a weakness with the short-ball which the Indian team could target to restrict their longstanding nemesis during the forthcoming summer.
The talks around the short-ball have gained momentum because of Smith's struggles to counter New Zealand pacer Neil Wagner during the previous summer. Either side of that, inarguably one of the world's best batsmen went down with concussion scare during the 2019 Ashes trip as well as this year's white-ball tour of UK.
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"I don't think it's (short-ball) actually a weakness. I think they're taking a shot at that area to get him out early and then what you'll see after that initial potential plan, they will go to a more standard plan to try and negate the runs," ESPNcricinfo quoted McDonald as saying.
"I think they've used it before and as I've said he's done well before so I'm suggesting that plan hasn't necessarily worked to its full effect. I know in the Test match he had that moment with Archer where it got him but in terms of coming back off that he was able to score runs."
"Even in one-day cricket, he was able to score and in T20 cricket he's been able to score runs with that plan being adopted by opponents. I don't necessarily see it as a weakness but they can keep approaching that way if they want," he added.
After missing the majority of the series in England, Smith also endured a lean patch captaining Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the IPL 2020 in UAE, scoring only 311 runs in 14 innings with just three scores in excess of 50 runs.
McDonald, however, stood firm with his backing of the high-class right-hander.
"They (India) had a clear plan early on in the innings where they had a leg gully, a deep square, and a man deep in front of square and everyone up on the offside in the powerplay," said Royals' head coach.
"That's a tactic that they've used before and as I said it's probably to negate the runs that he scores and try and give themselves the best opportunity to potentially get him out in that area. But he was able to combat that in India last time. He got a magnificent 131 in the last ODI at Bangalore and he made a significant contribution at Rajkot.
"But he's had that (teams targetting him) before and he's worked his way through it and I see this series as being no different in the way that he approaches," McDonald added.
(Inputs from ANI)
