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Watch: Smith overtakes Bradman, breaks 73-year-old record

Smith
by Aadya Sharma 1 minute read

Steve Smith continued his prolific Test run in 2019, going past Donald Bradman’s tally and becoming the quickest to 7,000 Test runs, during the Adelaide Test against Pakistan on Saturday, November 30.

Playing his 126th innings in his 70th Test, Smith, on 19, clipped Yasir Shah to fine leg to go past Bradman’s iconic figure of 6996 Test runs. The next over, he pulled one off debutant Musa Khan to bring up 7,000 Test runs, the fastest in terms of innings, bettering Walter Hammond’s record of 131 innings, set in 1927.

With this, Smith broke the Bradman-Kumar Sangakkara duopoly: Bradman was the fastest to 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 and 6,000 Test runs, while Sangakkara holds the distinction of being the fastest to 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 [joint with Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar], 11,000 and 12,000.

Herbert Sutcliffe [equalled by Everton Weekes] was the fastest to 1,000 runs, while Sachin Tendulkar is the only batsman to score more than 15,000 Test runs.

The 50th batsman to complete 7,000 runs in Tests, Smith is the only one on the list with an average of more than 60.

Smith is the top-ranked batsman on the current Test charts.

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