Steve Smith

Steve Smith’s hundred in the ongoing Test match at Melbourne was his 11th against India, a world record. He went past Joe Root.

Smith came out to bat at 154-2 on day one of the Boxing Day Test match. He weathered the storm as Australia slipped from 237-2 to 246-5 on the first afternoon, and finished unbeaten on 68 at stumps. On the second morning, he drove a ball from Nitish Kumar Reddy to the extra-cover boundary to bring up his 34th Test hundred at a venue where his astonishing average continued to grow.

Smith also became the first batter to hit 11 hundreds against India, going past Root’s tally of 10 (no one else has nine). This is only Smith’s 23rd Test against the tourists – in other words, he has hit a ton in almost every alternate Test. The conversion rate – 11 hundreds out of 16 scores in excess of fifty – also makes phenomenal reading.

Smith made 92 in his first Test against India, at Mohali in 2012-13, but truly came into his element in the 2014-15 home series. There, he hit a hundred in each of the four matches, and made it five in five with another in his next Test against India, in Pune in 2016-17. He missed out in Bengaluru on that tour, but got a hundred in each of the next two Tests.

The next two came at reasonable intervals, at Sydney in 2020-21 and at Ahmedabad in 2022-23. However, he turned things around in the ongoing series, with hundreds at Brisbane and now Melbourne.

Most Test hundreds against India

Updated at Smith’s score on 134

Batter Team Tests Runs 100s 50s
Steve Smith* Australia* 23* 2300* 11 5
Joe Root England 30 2846 10 11
Garry Sobers West Indies 18 1920 8 7
Viv Richards West Indies 28 1927 8 7
Ricky Ponting Australia 29 2555 8 12

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