Steve Smith is winning his duel with England fast bowler Jofra Archer, says ex-Australia captain Tim Paine.<\/b><\/p>\n
Archer continued his personal battle with Smith on the final day of the second Ashes Test in Brisbane with a hostile spell that saw him bowl several rapid short-pitched deliveries at Australia’s stand-in captain.<\/p>\n
Smith, however, stood firm – first sledging the England quick and then hooking Gus Atkinson for the six that sealed victory and a 2-0 series lead with three to play.<\/p>\n
Archer has now bowled 220 balls at Smith without dismissing him in Test cricket, more than any other bowler he has faced, though that does not take into account a blow the batter sustained at Lord’s in 2019.<\/p>\n
Smith was forced to retire hurt after being hit in the neck by a brutal bouncer and was subsequently ruled out of the next Test with concussion.<\/p>\n
“There’s a lot of huff and puff from big Jof at the moment. Steve Smith is winning that battle hands down,” said Paine.<\/p>\n
“It’s really a crucial battle to the rest of the Ashes series. [At the moment] it’s another battle that Smithy won, so he continues to build his record against him.”<\/p>\n
Paine, though, does believe England will enjoy the conditions in Adelaide for the third Test, which begins on Wednesday (23:30 GMT, Tuesday).<\/p>\n
“If England get it right, they’re going to be really dangerous,” said Paine, who was speaking at the Adelaide Oval.<\/p>\n
“If there’s any wicket and ground in the country that suits them more than this, I don’t think there is on – so there will be a fascinating Test match.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Smith is winning his duel with England fast bowler Jofra Archer, says ex-Australia captain Tim Paine. Archer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[1406,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-626367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115701264230256731","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}