Watch: Steve Smith’s beautiful gesture for Ben Duckett after his historic knock in CT 2025 wins hearts

The 30-year-old England National Cricket Team left-handed batsman Ben Duckett played a stunning knock in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 match against Steve Smith-led Australia National Cricket Team.

Australia skipper Steve Smith congratulated Ben Duckett following his heroics at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on Saturday, February 22.

Also Read: Watch: Ball-tampering in CT 2025? Mark Wood caught & confronted by umpire in AUS vs ENG clash

Ben Duckett plays a historic knock against Australia

Duckett played one of the best innings of his international cricket career during his team's ICC Champions Trophy 2025 opening match. He started off aggressively after England were invited to bat first.

Ben Duckett showcased an attacking brand of cricket but took a calculative risk as he focused on playing a longer innings and not throwing away his wicket.

Recently, Duckett faced a lot of criticism for not converting his starts into big scores, and in the match against the Aussies, he made sure to shut down his critics.

Ben Duckett took the Australian bowlers to the cleaners and completed his fifty off 49 balls, century off 95 balls, and 150 off 134 balls. With this, he became the first-ever cricketer to slam 150 runs in an innings in ICC Champions Trophy history.

Duckett was dismissed on the second ball of the 48th over of the innings by Marnus Labuschagne. The Aussie part-time spinner bowled a tossed-up delivery, and Duckett tried to slog it across the line but failed to make a connection with the ball. The ball hit him in the front of the stumps, but he took a review.

As the decision was being made by the third umpire using the technology, Steve Smith approached Ben Duckett, who was standing on his crease, and gave him a fist bump to congratulate him for his heroics. Duckett was eventually given out by third umpire and he walked back to the hut after scoring 165 runs off 143 balls, with 17 fours and 3 sixes.

Watch: Steve Smith’s beautiful gesture for Ben Duckett

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Australia entering Champions Trophy on the back of horror show in Sri Lanka

Australia entered the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 on the back of a 2-0 whitewash at the hands of Sri Lanka. In their previous ODI, they faced a crushing 174-run defeat in Colombo. Notably, it was Sri Lanka’s biggest ODI win over Australia.

The bowling effort of the Aussies was quite poor, and they allowed Sri Lanka to finish up with a commanding total of 281/4 in 50 overs, with Kusal Mendis (101) and Charith Asalanka (78) playing brilliant knocks.

For Australia, Sean Abbott (1/41) and Ben Dwarshuis (2/47) bowled well and they were supported by Aaron Hardie (1/60) and Adam Zampa (1/47).

Chasing 282, Australia displayed an absolute horror show and they collapsed to 107 all out in just 24.2 overs, equalling their eighth-lowest ODI total.

Matthew Short (2), Jake Fraser-McGurk (9), and Travis Head (18) fell early to Asitha Fernando (3-23). After that, Steven Smith (29) and Josh Inglis (22) offered brief resistance with a 46-run stand, but once Inglis was bowled by Dunith Wellalage (4/35), the innings got off the track.

Glenn Maxwell (1), Sean Abbott (2), and Aaron Hardie (0) were dismissed in quick succession, and from 83-4, Australia lost their last six wickets for just 24 runs.