[Watch] Shardul Thakur cleans up Steve Smith in WTC final
Indian pacer Shardul Thakur got rid of Australian star batter Steve Smith during the Day 2 of the World Test Championship (WTC) final on Thursday, June 8, at The Oval.
Smith and Travis Head troubled the Indian bowlers in the last two sessions of Wednesday to put Australia in the ascendancy with 327/3.
Smith continued from his overnight score of 95 and flicked Mohammed Siraj for a boundary through square leg to start Day 2. He found the gap between mid-wicket and mid-on for successive boundaries to complete his 31st Test ton, ninth against India, and seventh in England.
Siraj broke the 285-run commanding partnership between Smith and Head with the latter's removal in the 92nd over. Smith then hammered Siraj for back-to-back boundaries in his next over. The No.3 Test batter hit 19 boundaries during his determined knock before Shardul Thakur ended his stint in the middle.
Thakur pitched outside the off-stump line with the ball angling away only for Smith to poke it and find a big inside edge for the ball to clatter his stumps.
Watch the video here:
Steve Smith completes 2000 Test runs against India
Steve Smith scored 121 runs off 268 balls in the first innings of the WTC final. This knock will certainly give him a huge respite after his dismal record in the 2023 Border Gavaskar Trophy in India (145 runs at 29.00) three months ago.
The determined knock from Smith's willow had flashes of his prime years against India. The star Australian batter accomplished 2000 runs against India in the red-ball format en route to his 31st Test hundred.
The artist of modern Test cricket - Steve Smith 😍🇦🇺
#Cricket #SteveSmith #Australia https://t.co/lbKoX35HGf
Smith has accumulated 2008 runs in 36 innings against India at an average of 66.93, including five half-centuries and nine hundreds.
This is only the second instance for the Australian Test vice-captain to score more than 2000 runs against a particular opposition after he achieved the same feat against England (3044).