Steve Smith's glaring flaw called out as Glenn McGrath reveals ...

Steve Smith has become a victim of his own success with various cricketing nations concocting a plan to dismiss him. Various techniques such as yorkers, bouncers and targeting the corridor of uncertainty have all tried and failed to regularly dismiss him but the key to the 35-year-old's wicket was far more simple, bowl at his body.

Smith's eye, technique and temperament have long been his biggest assets and he is undoubtedly one of the greatest to ever do it. The batsman from a leg-spinning all-rounder to scoring the fourth most runs in Australian Test history.

But he is in a funk. The 35-year-old currently averages 56.09 - his lowest since 2016. And in his last nine innings, he has averaged 17.4, having made just 157 runs. His decline, however, coincides with a plan developed to take away his free-flowing off-side game, by bowling at his body.

Steve Smith has changed his batting technique but bowlers have appeared to have worked him out. Image: X/Getty

The tactic saw him dismissed cheaply twice in the first Test against India and again he was undone by the plan, tickling one down leg side that wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant caught with ease on Saturday. His two off 11 balls looked to the naked eye as a man out of form but it is as much that as it is a specialised game plan working.

In Smith’s battling 11-ball stay, he let just one ball go wide of off-stump and lobbed an edge through the cordon just before he fell as the Indians zeroed in on his middle and leg stump, fully testing his defence off both feet. And when he knicked off down leg, former Australian quick Brett Lee said Smith simply can't catch a break. “(It is a) horrible way to get out. (That is) terrible for a batsman," Lee said in Fox Cricket commentary.

Steve Smith fell cheaply again in the first innings of the second Test against India. Image: Getty

“I mean, you play that shot 1000 times and you might nick one that fine. You have to play that shot. You are committed to playing that stroke because you can’t let it hit you. It’s just bad luck,” he said.

“He just needs (some) good luck. We saw the dismissal from the first innings in Perth where he stepped across and his head looked really still. Steve Smith is a busy cricketer. But it was that extra bit of movement he was doing walking across the crease. But he looked like he tightened that up today and I thought he was in for a big one. It was a bit of bad luck, which happens, but you don’t change your style. That’s just the rub of the green.”

Rival bowlers relentlessly target Steve Smith's body. Image: Getty

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However, former Indian coach Ravi Shastri, says the dismissal was anything but lucky. Instead, Shastri says it was a result of a specialised game plan to target his leg stump and body. “You imagine the batsman feels he’s unlucky but it’s a plan. It is a tactic they have used against Smith and it has paid off,” Shastri said.

It is a point Isa Guha agreed with as well. “A lot of opposition teams do set that plan to him, so I don’t think they would have been too surprised about it,” she said. “The angle that’s created, you always feel like you’re in the game if you are Jasprit Bumrah because of the extra bounce that he gets, so it was excellent work from Rishabh Pant to be aware of that."

And it is not like Smith hasn't identified his weakness. Glenn McGrath says the Aussie batsman has made big changes to his stance to try and rectify his recent dismissals.

The legendary Aussie fast bowler said on ABC radio that Smith had adopted a new plan and stance after Perth, opting to stand still rather than shuffle across the crease towards the off-side. But it still didn;t stop India from executing their plan.

When Smith was on top of the cricketing world, he would immediately take a big step across with his back foot planting it outside off and opening his body up to an array of shots. However, after bowlers began to target his body and front leg, Smith saw he was being dismissed lbw more and more.

So now he has tinkered further with his stance and it is far more conventional. However, he still isn't getting the freedom to play to his strengths and credit must be given to bowling outfits, especially India, for that. While Smith is still adapting and plotting ways to improve, he needs to find a way to deal with a leg-side attack if he is to break out of his funk.