Steve Smith seems to have returned back to his prolific form in the longest format of the game as the Australian star slammed his 36th century on Day 1 of the first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle.
During his 141-run knock, Smith became only the fourth Australian batter to breach the landmark of 10,000 Tests runs, joining the likes of Allan Border, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting in an elite list.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, former cricketer Aakash Chopra lauded the feat of Smith, who now has 10,140 runs to his name at an average of 56.33 in 115 Tests.
Chopra mentioned that Smith now leads Indian stalwart Virat Kohli by five Test tons despite the latter playing five more innings.
"Smith has scored a century (against Sri Lanka). He has struck his 35th century in just 205 innings. (Joe) Root has scored 36 hundreds but he has played 278 innings. So if you look at it in terms of the strike rate, the number of innings he takes to score a century, then Steve Smith is ahead of Joe Root," Chopra said.
He also pointed out that Kohli has the worst average, in comparison to his Fab 4 contemporaries -- Smith, Joe Root and Kane Williamson.
"If I see Virat Kohli here, he has played 210 innings, which means he has played five more innings than Steve Smith and has five centuries fewer than him. So Virat Kohli, unfortunately, now has the worst strike rate because he has scored only three centuries in the last five years," Chopra added.
Meanwhile, Virat Kohli is currently taking part in Delhi’s Ranji Trophy fixture against Railways at the Arun Jaitley Stadium. This match marks his return to India’s premier domestic red-ball tournament after 13 years.
Kohli’s return to the Ranji Trophy has been inspired by BCCI’s latest diktat that makes it mandatory for centrally contracted players to feature in domestic cricket when not on national duty. The decision was taken after India’s 1-3 drubbing in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Down Under.
While Kohli finished the tour of Australia with an average of 23.75, he scored only 417 runs in 10 Tests at an average of 24.52 last year. As a result, his career average has dropped to 46.85 after 123 Tests.
(With ANI Inputs)
