press trust of india
Melbourne, Dec 26: He seems to wear the captain’s blazer very well. ‘Smudge’ as Steve Smith is popularly called by his teammates smudged the Indian attack and guided Australia to a position of strength in the third Test here Friday at the MCG.
Australia had started the Boxing Day game disastrously losing in-form David Warner for a six-ball duck. But Smith (72 n o, 158b, 4×4, 1×6) took the hosts to 259 for five at stumps, something that distinctly did not look possible when Australia were tottering at 115 for three. Smith in the process passed 1000 runs in the calendar year and is poised to score his third successive Test hundred against India.
In spite of losing Warner early, the Australians had recovered through a 115-run second wicket stand between Chris Rogers (57, 126b, 5×4) and Shane Watson (52, 89b, 4×4). But both left within the space of six balls and then Smith had to hold the fort together.
For the Indians, pacers Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami, brought in place of Varun Aaron, stuck to a tight line and length to grab two wickets apiece while an equally impressive Ravichandran Ashwin took one wicket.
Australia were put on backfoot with Warner’s early dismissal. Their condition could have been worse had Shikhar Dhawan, who had taken Warner’s edge off Yadav in the slips, not put down a comparatively easy one offered by Watson off Shami. The score was then 37.
India recovered from a poor first session to pull things back and produced their best bowling display of the series in the second. They picked up the wickets of Watson and Rogers and in the post tea session added the wickets of Shaun Marsh (32, 83b, 4×4) and debutant Joe Burns (13). Marsh fell edging Shami to Mahendra Singh Dhoni while Burns inside-edged the ball to his stumps trying to cut Yadav from a cramped position.
Scoreboard
Australia (1st innings): Chris Rogers c Dhoni b Shami 57, David Warner c Dhawan b Yadav 0, Shane Watson lbw b Ashwin 52, Steven Smith batting 72, Shaun Marsh c Dhoni b Shami 32, Joe Burns c Dhoni b Yadav 13, Brad Haddin batting 23, Extras: (b-1, lb-6, w-1, nb-2) 10, Total: (for five wickets) 259.
Fall: 1-0, 2-115, 3-115, 4-184, 5-216.
Bowling: Ishant 21-6-54-0, Yadav 20-2-69-2, Shami 17-4-55-2, Ashwin 27-7-60-1, Vijay 5-0-14-0.
