Melbourne, Dec 27 (PTI) Steve Smith made a lackadaisical India pay enroute to his 34th hundred as he took Australia to a commanding 454 for 7 at lunch on the second day of the fourth Test here on Friday.
Smith (139 batting, 194 balls), who was on 68 off 111 balls overnight, took another 56 deliveries on day two morning to complete a Test ton which puts him on even keel with the legendary Sunil Gavaskar, who also has 34 hundreds to his name.
He is also 52 runs short of becoming the fourth Australian batter to complete 10,000 Test runs after Allan Border, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting.
The century came with a push drive through the vacant cover region and celebrations were pretty muted with a just vigorous head nod for his teammates in the dug-out.
The Indians, who were back in the game during final session on day one, couldn’t dislodge the overnight pair of Smith and skipper Pat Cummins (49, 63 balls). The duo added 112 runs for the seventh wicket and the slight advantage that Jasprit Bumrah had given his team was no longer there.
At the break, Mitchell Starc (15 batting) and Smith added another 43 runs for the eighth wicket.
Smith, who had a torrid run till the second Test of this series, batted in contrasting styles over the course of two days. On Thursday, he was ready to be patient and wait for deliveries at the expense of looking ugly.
On Friday, the same batter was walking down the track to force the bowlers alter their length. He was ready to pull and hook and got a six off Bumrah (3/97 in 28 overs) and Siraj (2/72 in 18 overs) respectively.
Despite a significant drop in temperature and a nip in the air, Indians failed to make use of the semi-new Kookaburra, with lines going all awry and length short enough to be punished. Cummins was allowed to settled down and hit seven boundaries.
Although skipper Rohit Sharma and head coach Gautam Gambhir decided on dropping Shubman Gill, the ploy of playing two spinners has backfired with Ravindra Jadeja (2/72 in 18 overs) and Washington Sundar (1/49 in 15 overs) not looking penetrative.
The hook off Siraj was so disdainfully hit that the bowler was left dumbfounded.
For a change, Siraj didn’t try and sledge an in-form batter, something he did in Adelaide with disastrous results. But that didn’t soften the Australian supporters, who constantly booed him and Virat Kohli whenever the ball went to them in the field. PTI KHS BS BS
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