Before England battled back in the morning session of day two of the second Ashes test at Lord’s on Thursday, Australia’s Steve Smith demonstrated once again why he is one of the best hitters of his time. England then cleaned off Australia’s tail for 77 runs, which allowed England to make a comeback.
When Smith resumed his innings with 85 runs, he did not waste any time in accumulating his 12th Ashes century, making him only the second hitter in the history of cricket, behind the legendary Donald Bradman, to achieve that many hundreds in the oldest competition in sport.
He reached his century by hitting a loose ball through the covers, and then he raised both of his hands in the air and looked towards the boundary, where his teammates had gathered to celebrate.
Smith’s second century at Lord’s, which followed his match-winning hit of 215 here in 2015, was also one for the aficionados of statistics.
It moved him up to fourth place on the all-time runs list in Ashes cricket, giving him 3,176. This put him ahead of his fellow countryman Steve Waugh, who had 3,173. He is the fourth Australian to achieve a career total of 9,000 successful test runs.
As a result of his century, he became the batsman with the record for the quickest time to score 32 hundreds in test matches. He accomplished this feat in 174 innings, which was faster than Ricky Ponting’s 176 and Sachin Tendulkar’s 179.
In the words of Alastair Cook, who batted for England in the past, “He is a run machine.”
Smith walked slowly and obviously upset back to the Lord’s pavilion, swishing his bat at imaginary balls and shouting to himself. Smith had reached 110 before mis-hitting the ball to gully, where England’s Ben Duckett made a brilliant catch.
But in striking contrast to the year 2019, when he was jeered upon his return to the “home of cricket” in the aftermath of a ban for his involvement in a ball-tampering controversy, Smith exited the field to warm ovation from the fans in admiration of his success. This was in contrast to the year 2019, when he was booed on his return to the “home of cricket.”
According to a pundit named Daniel Norcross, who was interviewed by the BBC, “He is the scourge of the English. He is the equivalent of Bradman in today’s world.”