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Inconsistency hurting us the most: Smith

Nagpur: Skipper Steven Smith has attributed Australia's abysmal run in ODIs to lack of consistency after the visitors were comfortably beaten by India in the five- match series.
Australia lost the fifth and final ODI against India by seven wickets on Sunday night to end the series 1-4.
"Probably the lack of consistency, I'd say," said Smith when asked about the biggest deficiency in the Australian ODI team.
Australia managed to win just one game in the series and that too came away after 11 straight losses away from home. Smith said his team was beaten by a better unit.
"We showed some glimpses throughout the series, that we could play but we've been losing wickets in clumps very consistently and that's not good enough. The top four need to stand up and really take control," he said.
"We did that in a couple of games, last game in Bangalore to be particular. But we are not doing it consistently enough."
Talking about the final match, Smith said they couldn't play the spinners well as India captain Virat Kohli had set a good field and his team failed to adapt.
"We had a chat after our second game, it was about playing the spinners and hitting the ball down the ground, I thought we did that in a couple of games. And then Virat Kohli set some really good fields and stopped us from hitting and I don't think we adapted well enough," he said.
"We could have used softer hands, played a bit square and hit the ball into the gaps instead of actually hitting the ball down the ground," said the skipper.
Australia made 242 in the fifth ODI and India overhauled the target with ease in just 42.5 overs. Smith said 242 was a below par total. "I don't think we had enough runs. We needed to take wickets and obviously were trying with different people to get a breakthrough and put some pressure. I thought Rohit played very well and timed his innings to perfection," he said.
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