Steve Smith Achieves Yet Another Incredible Milestone, Leaves Behind Jacques Kallis

Steve Smith has returned to his supreme form for Australia after low scores in a couple of Tests against India in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The right-hander, on Saturday (January 10), notched up his 30th Test fifty during Australia’s second innings in the Sydney Test.

Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne carried on batting on Day 4 with their overnight scores of 29 and 47 respectively.  Labuschagne got out after making his second fifty of the match. India could have sensed to make a comeback, however, Smith, riding on his first-innings century, and solid support by the youngster, Cameron Green, held Australia and reached another half-century.

Steve Smith was marching on to a three-figure score before Ravichandran Ashwin, for the third time in the series, halted Smith’s innings on 81. Green was dismissed just before tea on 84 as Tim Paine declared the innings on 312/6, setting India an almost unscalable target of 407.

Steve Smith surpasses Jaques Kallis, sets a new record

After his scores of 131 and 81 at the SCG, the talismanic Australian batsman has now achieved a tremendous feat of most number of century and half-century in a single Test. The 31-year-old has done it in 10 Tests, overtaking that of former South African great, Jaques Kallis, who had a tally of 9.

Former England captain, Sir Alastair Cook has made a fifty and a hundred in the same Test 8 times while Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Alan Border, and Kumar Sangakkara hold the fourth place recording this feat 7 times.

During his 81-run innings, Smith surpassed David Boon to become Australia’s 9th leading run-scorer in Test cricket. The former number 1 ICC Test batsman has amassed 7449 at an astonishing average of 62.07.

Steve Smith also now has scored a fifty in each innings of a Test 11 times, tied with  Inzamam-ul-Haq and Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Former Australia skipper, Ricky Ponting leads this group as he has made 50+ runs in both the innings of the same Test on 15 occasions.

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