Steve Smith overtakes Virat Kohli as second fastest to 24 Test centuries

↪ Steve Smith became the second-fastest after Don Bradman to score 24 Test centuries.

Steve Smith

Steve Smith, who served a 12-month ban for his role in the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa last year, marked his return to Test cricket with a gritty century to rescue Australia on the opening day of the Ashes series at Edgbaston on Thursday. Australia were reeling at 122/8 against England but Smith defied all odds to take the visitors' total to 284. Smith scored 144 runs to bring up his 24th Test century in 118 innings and became the second fastest batsman to do so. Only Donald Bradman got his 24th century in fewer innings (66). Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar took 123 and 125 innings respectively.

Fewest innings to 24th Test 100
66 - Don Bradman
118 - Steve Smith
123 - Virat Kohli
125 - Sachin Tendulkar
128 - Sunil Gavaskar

Steve Smith

Smith is now equal with Greg Chappell, Viv Richards and Mohammad Yousuf on 24 Test centuries. Only six Australia batsmen have more Test centuries now.

Moreover, Smith has scored nine centuries in 42 innings and averages over 60 in the Ashes. Five of the nine hundreds have come in the last seven Ashes Tests.

The former Australia captain, ignoring the repeated boos of the crowd, said he had contemplated the end of his career after the infamous scandal in South Africa.

"There were times throughout the last 15 months where I didn't know if I was ever going to play cricket again," Smith said after his masterful knock.

Smith's near six-hour innings was a chanceless affair until Stuart Broad eventually bowled him.

The England pacer claimed his 100th Test wicket against Australia, completing an innings haul of 5/86.

At stumps, England were 10/0 with openers Jason Roy (6) and Rory Burns (4) surviving the final two overs of the first day.

#MYLIFEMYWORLDCRICKET

The sport of cricket has a known history beginning in the late 16th century. Having originated in south-east England, it became the country's national sport in the 18th century and has developed globally in the 19th and 20th centuries.

There is a consensus of expert opinion that cricket may have been invented during Saxon or Norman times by children living in the Weald, an area of dense woodlands and clearings in south-east England. The first reference to cricket being played as an adult sport was in 1611, and in the same year, a dictionary defined cricket as a boys' game. There is also the thought that cricket may have derived from bowls, by the intervention of a batsman trying to stop the ball from reaching its target by hitting it away.Village cricket had developed by the middle of the 17th century and the first English “county teams” were formed in the second half of the century, as “local experts” from village cricket were employed as the earliest professionals. The first known game in which the teams use county names is in 1709. In the first half of the 18th Century cricket established itself as a leading sport in London and the south-eastern counties of England. Its spread was limited by the constraints of travel, but it was slowly gaining popularity in other parts of England and Women’s Cricket dates back to the 1745, when the first known match was played in Surrey.In 1744, the first Laws of Cricket were written and subsequently amended in 1774, when innovations such as lbw, a 3rd stump, - the middle stump and a maximum bat width were added. The codes were drawn up by the “Star and Garter Club” whose members ultimately founded the famous Marylebone Cricket Club at Lord's in 1787. MCC immediately became the custodian of the Laws and has made revisions ever since then to the current day.Rolling the ball along the ground was superseded sometime after 1760 when bowlers began to pitch the ball and in response to that innovation the straight bat replaced the old “hockey-stick” style of bat. The Hambledon Club in Hampshire was the focal point of the game for about thirty years until the formation of MCC and the opening of Lord's Cricket Ground in 1787.Cricket was introduced to North America via the English colonies as early as the 17th century, and in the 18th century it arrived in other parts of the globe. It was introduced to the West Indies by colonists and to India by British East India Company mariners. It arrived in Australia almost as soon as colonisation began in 1788 and the sport reached New Zealand and South Africa in the early years of the 19th century.         ...........this Words Belongs to THE HOME OF CRICKET I MEAN ICC.