During the first session of Day 3 of the fifth Test in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 on Sunday, January 5, Steven Smith wasted a golden opportunity to accomplish a spectacular accomplishment on his home pitch. At the legendary Sydney Cricket Ground, the former captain of Australia only needed five runs in the fourth innings to join the elite 10,000-run club in Test cricket. He was left stranded on 9,999 after being dismissed for four.
Smith would have been the fourth Australian after Steve Waugh, Allan Border, and Ricky Ponting to reach 10,000 runs in the game’s longest format, and only the fifteenth player overall. To reach the historic milestone, the talismanic batter will need to wait a bit longer.
Steve Smith was dismissed by Prasidh Krishna during the last moments of the morning session on Day 3.
After pitching, the Karnataka pacer bowled a delivery that was quite short and ascended steeply. Smith’s decision to move a few paces down the pitch was an intriguing one. He was in a big bind since all he could do was block it off the bat’s splice, which was low to Yashasvi Jaiswal’s right at third slip. The Indian opener made a nice low catch by diving at the right time.
Steve Smith gets caught just one run away from joining the 10,000 runs club 💔 #AUSvIND pic.twitter.com/ceKcfliOIO
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) January 5, 2025
Smith completed with nine innings and 314 runs at an average of 34.88. He continued to fall in love with India by scoring two hundred points over the series.
India had earlier in the day lost their final four wickets for just 16 runs, and were bowled out for 157. In the fourth innings, Australia had to chase down a target of 162. After ten years, Australia will be able to recapture the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with a victory. They are ahead 2-1 in the five-game series.
India
