Smith foiled by England's swingers

Australia's captain-elect Steven Smith has admitted that he has been drawn into playing strokes too often by the English skill of bending the ball on both directions, and hopes that his Australian fast men can learn to replicate the trick.

Smith entered this series not only as the world's No. 1 batsman but also as a committed follower of the dictum that free-scoring passages would arrive so long as he dug in early. Yet by the end of the Trent Bridge Test he had made four consecutive single-figure scores to cede the top ranking to Joe Root, and was also dismissed by four deliveries he could have left alone.

Over the course of this series, Smith's trigger movement across the crease has grown ever more pronounced, and the two balls he edged in the first innings at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge could certainly have been left in a more orthodox stance. But Smith said the threat of the ball moving both ways had contributed to his posture.

"I think if you look at the way England play over here, all of their bowlers swing the ball both ways," he said. "It makes it a lot harder to bat against when the ball is swinging both ways, I think when you look at our bowlers, they all swing it just the one way. So I think when you've got the ball swinging both ways you can get drawn into balls that perhaps you wouldn't play at back home or if the ball is swinging just the one way.

"At Trent Bridge I didn't face too many balls, so I wasn't able to get myself in. First innings I got a reasonable ball and looking back I could have left it on length, more than anything. Second innings I just hit a half-volley straight to the man at cover-point there, where they were trying to get me. Pretty disappointing not to have been able to get myself in in the last two Test matches."

There has been criticism of the second-innings stroke, a dismissal that Shane Warne described as "horrific", and Smith said his weight had been poorly distributed for the shot. But he defended his positive approach, arguing that a ball there to be hit to the boundary needed to be addressed that way no matter how many balls a batsman has faced up to.

"If you get a loose ball, you have to hit it," he said. "I hit two half-volleys for four and the one that I got out to in the second innings was pretty much the same. It was there to hit for four, I just didn't execute it well. My weight was a bit back, looking back at it. And that's something I'm trying to work on with my technique - to get my weight going forward. It's something that is pretty crucial here in England on the slower wickets as well."

Overall Smith felt that England's bowlers had tested the patience of Australia's batsmen and bowlers, and that it had been found wanting. "I think the way they've bowled has been really good," he said. "They make you earn your runs, they might not have the most attacking fields all the time and the lengths they bowl are really tough for these conditions.

"They really make you own your runs and, for me, I think the learnings are just about trying to get yourself in. Be really patient at the start of your innings, be really watchful and try and play the ball under your eyes. In Australia we're taught to play out in front a little bit more than here. So you have to really wait for the ball here in England.

"I think we haven't played well, and England have played very well. They've been really disciplined with their bowling, they make you earn your runs. Their batters know these conditions really well. They wait for the ball and when it's not in the right spot they punish it. I think we can learn a lot from the way they played here, and hopefully next time we can replicate that in the way we play and we'll have some success over here."