Smith reveals stress of follow-on fallout
Australian skipper Steve Smith admits he needed a sleeping pill to help deal with the stress of a potentially game-changing follow-on decision in the second Ashes Test.
The hosts had the opportunity to grind England into the dirt by forcing them to bat again after they conceded a 215-run first-innings lead in the pink-ball Ashes Test.
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But Smith instead opted to rest his bowlers and England fought their way back into the game, taking 4-53 in Monday night's session on day three in Adelaide.
The Aussies were then rolled for 138 as the Joe Root-inspired England got themselves in a position to potentially pull off a record-breaking victory on the fifth and final day.
Thankfully for Smith, pace spearheads Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc (with the help of spinner Nathan Lyon) spared the skipper the ignominy of defeat by rolling through England's remaining batsmen to claim a 120-run win and a 2-0 series lead.
"I had to have a sleeping pill last night. It has been a pretty tough 24 hours if I'm being honest," Smith said in the post-match press conference in Adelaide.
"It's all part of being captain of your country. You have to make difficult decisions and sometimes you're going to make the wrong decision.
"It's all part of the learning experience and hopefully I can learn something from this game.
"I'll think back and reflect I guess over the next day or so and think what I could've perhaps done differently, what I could've done better and just areas that I can continue to improve in my leadership and captaincy as well."
Smith admitted that the win helped lift a huge weight off his shoulders and helped him avoid what would have been a trying self-examination over the controversial decision not to enforce the follow-on.
"I haven't thought too much about it. We've won the game," Smith said.
"I would have thought about it had we lost.
"Fortunately we've been able to hang in there and get the result we're after. It doesn't matter any more."
Former Australian paceman Jason Gillespie said Smith was "thrown under the bus" over his decision not to enforce the follow-on, with assistant coach David Saker admitting it was the wrong call.
"Steven has obviously made the decision that he felt the guys had bowled enough," Saker said.
"In hindsight, we didn't get an opportunity to bowl with the new ball under lights -- that was our chance.
"Maybe we got it wrong. At the end of the Test match we will review that.
"But if come out of this winning the game, which I still think we will, you can say it was justified in some way."
Gillespie on Wednesday said he was stunned by Saker's forthright comments.
"You could argue that he's probably thrown his captain under the bus," Gillespie told Fox Sports.
"I can't believe it's actually come out of the Aussie camp.
"Really, once a decision is made everyone supports it and gets behind it ... the consensus would have said 'right, we're either doing this or this', and everyone just go with it."
With AAP