Australia's Steve Smith has once again shown why he is regarded as one of the best batsmen of the current generation. On the second day of the second Test of the Ashes series, he scored an inning of 110 runs which helped Australia to score 416 runs in the first innings against England. This was Smith's overall 32nd Test century.
Smith is the fastest to score 32 Test hundreds in 174 innings. Ricky Ponting of Australia did this in 176 innings and Sachin Tendulkar in 179 innings. This is Smith's 12th century in the Ashes series and only veteran Don Bradman (19) is ahead of him. England's Jack Hobbs also has 12 centuries in the Ashes, which he equaled on Thursday.
England fans also praised Smith
Australia's team started playing ahead of 339 runs for 5 wickets on Thursday and lost their last five wickets for 77 runs. Smith began the second day ahead with a personal score of 85. Alex Carey (22) and Mitchell Starc (06) returned to the pavilion in the first twenty minutes. At that time Smith was playing on 87 runs.
After the dismissals of Carey and Stark, Smith started scoring runs fast given the time requirement. He hit boundaries on his next four shots. In this, he completed his century with the 14th four of the innings on Anderson. He kissed his helmet and looked at his teammates with a big smile to celebrate his century. Apart from Australian supporters, England fans were also applauding his century innings.
Smith equals compatriot Steve Waugh
Smith equaled compatriot Steve Waugh with his 32nd Test century. He scored his eighth on English soil and his second hundred at the historic ground of Lord's. Earlier in 2015, Smith played a match-winning inning of 215 runs here. With 3176 runs, he has reached number four in the list of most runs scored in the Ashes. He left behind Steve Waugh (3173). He is behind only Don Bradman (5028 runs), Jack Hobbs (3636 runs), and Allan Border (3222 runs). This is his second century this month, the first being against India in the final of the Test Championship at The Oval.
Oli and Tong took 3-3 wickets
The floodlights at Lord's had to be switched on for the first time in the afternoon match. Smith tried to drive Josh Tongue and was caught by Duckett at the gully. He spent more than five hours in the field. During this, facing 184 balls, he hit 15 fours. After that Australia's innings could not last more than 25 minutes. Pat Cummins remained unbeaten on 22 runs. Ollie Robinson took the last two wickets. Oli also took three wickets like Tong.
England's Ben Duckett misses out on a century
Talking about England, he scored 274 runs for four wickets in the first innings till the end of the second day's play. He is 138 runs behind Australia in the first innings. Harry Brook is unbeaten on 45 and captain Ben Stokes on 17 runs. Earlier, Ben Duckett scored the highest 98 runs for England. He missed out on scoring a century at Lord's. Jack Crawley scored 48 and Oli Pope scored 42 runs. An experienced batsman who could score only 10 runs. Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, and Cameron Green took one wicket each for Australia.
(pc amarujala)
