Smith blasts Australia’s record as unacceptable

Side fall to yet another defeat in Asia after going down 3-0 in five-match series against India

MELBOURNE: Steve Smith has said his side's record in 2017 is unacceptable for an Australian cricket team in the wake of their ODI series loss to India.

Australia's five-wicket defeat in Indore saw them fall 3-0 behind in the five-match series, and was their 11th loss in their past 13 ODIs away from home. The other two matches were rain-affected no results.

With the Ashes looming in two months, the Australia skipper said his team needed to get back to winning ways fast. "It's a different format [to the Ashes] but I'd certainly like to start winning some games of cricket in every format to be honest," Smith told reporters. "It's pretty ordinary. Not good enough for an Australian cricket team and we need to start turning the results around and winning some games.”

The right-handed batsman feels it is now time to draw a line in the sand. "It's been a bit of a trend for this format and the Test format as well,” he said. "We're quite often getting ourselves into good positions and we're not taking advantage of those and today was no different."

Australia have won just three out of 17 matches across all three formats since the ODI series victory at home against Pakistan in January.

Smith's men will be keen to break their win drought, mindful that an ODI series whitewash away to South Africa last year preceded the 2-1 Test series defeat against the same opponents on home soil.

"It's always hard to take when you lose," said Smith. "[As captain] you've got to continue to try and motivate them and get them up for their next two games. We continually address it and it's just hard to put the finger on exactly what it is we're doing or not doing to get the results we're after."

The fourth ODI is in Bengaluru on Thursday.