Steve Smith doesn’t see any problem in selfishness

Within a day of Glenn Maxwell’s ‘selfish’ comments about Indian batsmen who, in his opinion, play for ‘personal milestones’, Steve Smith and Aaron Finch, his teammates, have voiced their opinion on the subject and have refused to align with the all-rounder’s thoughts. Smith thinks it is natural for any batsman in the world to slow down while reaching a milestone.

The talk of Indian players being selfish was “obviously Glenn’s view; that’s not my personal view. Virat Kohli got a 100 off 80-odd balls the other day – there was nothing selfish about that innings. That was an extraordinary, extraordinary innings,” said Finch on Friday.

“Shikhar Dhawan got it off about 95 balls, I think. He took the game on at the start for India along with Rohit (Sharma) and got them off to an absolute flyer. Gee! There are some seriously good players in India. Virat – 25 ODI hundreds now. That’s an unbelievable achievement,” he added.

Steve Smith said, “I think that can be natural for anyone around the world. When you see that sort of milestone coming, in the back of your mind you might slow down a little bit. I think Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are quality players and they’re batting beautifully and I don’t see any problem with any selfishness there.”

After his match-winning knock of 96 runs in the third ODI, Maxwell had courted controversy by mentioning that Indian batsmen were playing for personal landmarks. “They were, probably, just making sure they got to a milestone. Some people are milestone-driven, some people aren’t,” he had stated.

In order to clarify his stance, the all-rounder had cited the example of Virat, who reached his 25th century in the fourth match of the series, saying, “I think if you look back at it. I was sent a photo the other day. It said – Virat was 84 off 63 (factually, he was 84 off 61), and then 100 off 89 (100 off 84) or something like that. He got his last 11 runs off 22 (21) balls to get his hundred.”