During the third day of the World Test Championship (WTC) final, Australia star batter Steve Smith sustained a finger injury while trying to take South Africa skipper Temba Bavuma's catch and this mistake would later turn out to be quite costly for the Aussies.
After the reigning WTC champions set up a target of 282 for the Proteas to achieve, the duo of Aiden Markram and Bavuma went on to form an incredible partnership, leaving South Africa just 69 runs shy from reaching the total by the end of the third day. However, Smith did have a golden chance to bring an end to the stand and send Bavuma back to the pavilion when the South Africa batter edged a delivery straight towards him in the slip cordon. It looked as if it will be an easy catch for the Australian, but not only did Smith end up dropping it, he also hurt his finger in the process.
Smith was straight away taken to the hospital
The 36-year-old wes sent to the hospital where it was found that he had suffered a compound dislocation of his right little finger. Following Australia's five-wicket defeat in the final, Smith addressed the concerns regarding his injury and stated that there is a possibility that he will be available for the Baggy Greens' three-match Test series against West Indies which is set to commence from June 25.
"I will be in a splint for eight weeks now, and I may be able to play with it in a couple of weeks. It will depend on my functionality and what I am able to do, so it was probably the best result I could have hoped for," Smith said after the WTC final defeat, as quoted by ICC.
Smith also recalled the injury incident, stating that he was standing very close to Bavuma and lost sight of the ball. Due to this, he reacted very late and ended up dropping the important catch.
"I was standing pretty close with the helmet on, and as we saw throughout the game, a lot of nicks went short of first and second slip. The plan was to stand pretty close, and I lost sight of it with the angle that Mitchell Starc was bowling, and it kind of went inside Bavuma's hip," Smith stated.
"I didn't quite see it until really late and it kind of dipped on me a little bit late too as well. It was tricky, it didn't go in my hand very well, and fortunately, there is no break there, and it just split the skin and dislocated it, which made me feel pretty ill at that stage," he added.
The drop proved to be fatal for both Smith and Australia as Bavuma was only batting on two runs at that time. The South Africa skipper eventually went on to play a valiant knock of 66 runs and was one of the side's top performers during the all-important final as they finally managed to end their 27-year wait for an ICC trophy.