Australia’s Steve Smith created a new record on the 2nd day of Australia vs South Africa’s third Test match. After hitting 104 runs off 192 balls, Smith broke legendary Sir Donald Bradman’s record for the most Test hundreds in Australia’s history.
Smith became the fourth Australian to reach 30 centuries. Former skipper Ricky Ponting scored the highest of 41 centuries for Australia in 168 Test matches while Steve Waugh hit 32 centuries in the same amount of games.
Steve Smith passes Sir Donald Bradman on Australia's all-time list for most Test centuries 👏#WTC23 | #AUSvSA pic.twitter.com/fwHvZDmo18
— ICC (@ICC) January 5, 2023
In addition to breaking the century record, the batsman became the second-fastest player to score 30 Test centuries by hitting the record in 162 innings. This is not the only record Smith managed to achieve during the match.
Smith also became the country’s fourth-highest run scorer in the format by overtaking Hayden and Michael Clarke. During the match’s 48th over, Usman Khawaja and Smith added more than 200 runs to the Australian total during their partnership. As a result, Khawaja achieved his thirteenth hundred in Test matches, and the team’s total went well over 350 runs.
With his score of 195 runs, Khawaja has also his highest Test score. Sources say he will be chasing a maiden Test double hundred on Friday. The last time an Australian player scored so high in a Test match was by David Warner. He had scored double centuries on the 2nd Day of the Boxing Day Test against South Africa.
Following the Test match, Smith now has 8,647 runs in his career and an average of 60.89 while batting in the longest format.
Smith began his Test career in 2010 as a leg spinner who batted at No. 8. After the England tour in 2015, he was appointed as Australia’s Test and ODI captain. In the course of his Test career, he developed a distinctive batting average and earned plenty of records.
According to one report, Steve Smith said, “South Africa is the one team that has bowled pretty well to me in the past, my record’s probably not as good against them as some of the others.” His average against South Africa coming into the series was 41.53, the lowest of any team he’s played at least three Tests against.
His highest batting average, on the other hand, is 150.40 from matches against the West Indies.
The last time Australia went against South Africa in a Test Series was in 2018. The teams had four tests that year, and South Africa won 3-1. Initially, Australia took the lead with a 118-run win in the 1st Test, but South Africa gave a memorable end to the Test Series with a 492-run victory in the 4th test. Australia last won against South Africa in a Test Series when they toured South Africa in 2014.