Steve Smith refused to blame his inconsistent teammates for their batting failures during the Ashes after he again shouldered the run-scoring burden for Australia.
The former skipper scored 80 at the Oval -- his lowest total of a sensational series -- as the tourists were bowled out for 225, 69 runs short of England's first-innings total of 294 on the second day of the fifth and final Test.
Smith has now amassed 751 runs, a sizeable chunk of the team's overall tally of 2,508 runs over the entire series even though he has missed three of the nine innings after being hit by a Jofra Archer bouncer.
When he was asked for reasons for Australia's batting failures he said conditions had not been kind throughout the series but that players would learn from performing in unfamiliar conditions.
"We haven't seen any huge totals really throughout the whole series so it's not been easy," he said.
"There's always been something there, I felt. If you bowl in good areas for long enough then I think we've seen you'll get rewards."
"Sometimes you need to change certain little things that can help you play in certain conditions and adapt accordingly but I think it will be a good learning curve for all of our batters."
- Pressures - =============
"People can say whatever they like, nice things, bad things, whatever. It really doesn't bother me."
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