Srinagar: One of the modern day great Test batter, Australia’s Steve Smith was left stranded on 9999 Test runs after getting one run short of 10K Test run milestone in 5th Test vs India at Sydney.
Sydney native Smith had batted well in the first innings to score 33, reaching a total of 9995 runs before being dismissed. Smith became only the fourth batter to be dismissed in the ‘nervous 9990s’, joining Brian Lara, Alastair Cook, and Mahela Jayawardena.
However, it would become even more dramatic in the second innings, as Smith reached 9999 runs, before he climactically edged a delivery from Prasidh Krishna to Yashasvi Jaiswal at gully while the crowd watched on in expectation of the milestone.
Smith missed out on the opportunity to become only the fourth Australian batter to reach that crucial mark, with the opportunity to do so in front of his home crowd at the SCG, and reflected on how that missed personal accolade stung.
“One run… it hurt a little bit at the time. It would have been nice to have ticked that off in front of all my friends and family here at my home ground,” Smith told the Sydney Morning Herald.
“But hopefully, I can knock it off first thing in Galle (Sri Lanka, first Test),” said Smith, who will be leading the Australian team as Pat Cummins remains at home for the birth of his child.
“I probably let it wander (in my mind) too much throughout the game. It’s a cool milestone to tick off.”
Smith is set to become the first Australian batter since Ricky Ponting to reach 10,000 Test runs, joining him, Steve Waugh, and Allan Border as the batters to have done so.
Smith brought up his 33rd and 34th Test centuries in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, surpassing Waugh’s mark and coming up on Ponting’s Australian record of 41.