Smudge falls just one short of 10,000 test runs as he ended his Border-Gavaskar series with a single-digit score.
Smudge, the lynchpin of Australia’s batting fell agonisingly short of reaching the 10,000-run landmark.
He narrowly missed the mark on Saturday. Then, 24 hours later, on Jane McGrath Day of the Pink Test in Sydney, in front of a crowd of nearly 40,000 spectators, Prasidh Krishna produced a delivery climb from a short distance away as Smith moved down the pitch, and he was only able to fend it into the gully. After Mahela Jayawardene, he became the second batter to reach 9999 runs.
Smith’s next chance to become the 15th hitter to reach the 10,000 club will now have to wait until the first Test match against Sri Lanka in Galle later this month.
Smith, who is frequently said to as the best since Bradman, will be the fourth batter from Australia in the group, following Ricky Ponting, Steve Waugh, and Allan Border. Border honoured Smith and his place among the game’s greats prior to this SCG Test.
“Averaging 57 or so is in the top echelon ever, if you take one certain bloke [Bradman] out of it and he’s right up there with the very, very best,” he told Nine newspapers. “As far as Australia’s concerned, we’ve had Greg Chappell, Ricky Ponting, Steve Waugh, those sorts of players.
“But now Steve [Smith] ranks equally with that group, no problems whatsoever. I’m a huge fan of Tendulkar and Lara, they were phenomenally good cricketers, but Steve is definitely up with that lot, for sure.”