India vs Australia: Steve Smith Warns Team Against Complacency, To Go With Same XI In Second Test

Australian captain Steve Smith on Friday warned his teammates against complacency and said that the big win in the series opener in Pune is a thing of the past and the tourists would look to start afresh when they take on India in the second cricket Test starting from Saturday. "We know India are going to come back hard at us, there is no doubt about it. They play very well at home," he said. Approaching the series as underdogs, Australia drubbed fancied India by 333 runs in the first Test inside three days in Pune to take a 1-0 lead.

But Smith said they can't afford to dwell on the past for long.

"We can take a lot of heart from the way we played last week. The conditions were very tough and the way the boys adopted to the conditions was appreciable.

"But it is a new game and we will have to make a fresh start. We will have to start from ball one," Smith told reporters at the pre-match press conference at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

Expecting the Bengaluru pitch to be different from Pune, Smith believes batting effort in the first innings will show the way forward for his side in the upcoming Test.

"It was a difficult wicket (in Pune) and we showed them we can compete in those conditions and, more importantly, we probably showed ourselves."

Smith said their approach would be simple -- bat for long hours and build partnerships to post a big total in the first innings.

"I think the wicket here is going to be similar to the one that was prepared for the England match. First innings runs are going to be crucial. We need to bat for long periods of time to be able to post a big first innings score," he said.

"It's just about the mindset of batting for long periods of time. The last wicket (in Pune) we played on, we thought 250 was a good total. But here I think it's going to be a lot more than that in the first innings.

"Looking at the wicket it's crucial to score big in the first innings," he added.

Announcing an unchanged team for the match, Smith said they will prefer to bat first in the second Test.

"We are playing the same team. It was a good mix of two fast bowlers, an all-rounder that bowls quick and two quality spinners," he said.

"I am not sure what the wickets were like for first-class cricket here but having looked at the last 10 Test matches being played here, first innings runs have been big. So hopefully we can do the same," Smith added.

Smith also said that he is aware about the fact that they are just a win away from retaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

"We know that we have to win one more game to regain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and things can happen pretty quickly here in India at certain times, particularly at the back end of the game. So we can only be a couple of sessions away from that," he said.

(With inputs from PTI)