Steve Smith 'Feels' For England As Australia Retain Ashes: 'When You're Losing...'

Steve Smith showed sympathy for Ben Stokes’ England team as they faced criticism after an early Ashes series defeat to Australia. England lost the first three Tests, giving Australia an unassailable 3-0

lead after their recent victory in Adelaide.

Smith will rejoin the Australian team for the Boxing Day Test, continuing as stand-in captain for Pat Cummins, who is recovering from an inner-ear issue. With Australia having already secured the urn and aiming for a series sweep, Smith was asked if he felt sympathy for the heavily scrutinised English team.

Smith, who was stripped of the Australian captaincy and suspended for a year after the Sandpaper-gate scandal in South Africa, understands the pressures of being in the spotlight and expressed empathy for England’s situation.

“When you’re losing, the spotlight is always on you and things can get spoken about and get blown up pretty heavily. So … I feel for them, in a way. It can be tricky. You’re in a country where you know you can go out and about and enjoy yourselves, and with big breaks, you know, you’ve got to experience the country that you’re in as well. And they had a pretty big break in between,” Smith was quoted as saying by reporters at the MCG on Christmas Day.

‘Just Relax For A Little’

The focus has shifted from England’s short series preparation to allegations of overindulgence during a break in Noosa between the Brisbane and Adelaide Tests. Smith stated that he has no problem with the team taking breaks between matches and believes it can help reset teams under pressure or not at their best.

“Sometimes I think you’ve just got to — and I heard a few of the comments — but you have got to get away from the game and try and put it out of your mind and just relax for a little bit too. And I can see that’s the kind of path that they wanted to go down and I think it’s fair enough.

“I can’t really comment more than that on how they’re feeling or how they’re going about things but, yeah, I certainly believe that when you’ve lost two Test matches, and you’ve got such a long break, sometimes you just need to get away from the game and switch off entirely,” he said.

(With inputs from Agencies)