• Home
  • Cricket News
  • The Ashes Day Night Test Day 2 Steve Smith Misses Ton But Puts Hosts Ahead On Captaincy Return

The Ashes | Day-Night Test, Day 2: Steve Smith misses ton, but puts hosts ahead on captaincy return

Onecricket

Steve Smith celebrated his return to the leadership of the Australian side with a resilient 93 in the Day-Night Ashes Test against England in Adelaide. He batted with absolute control and authority over England bowling attack until his dismissal when a delivery from James Anderon kept low and found him in front of the stumps.

He looked set and determined for a century in the Ashes series after missing out on a big score in the first Test at the Gabba. He did not have to do a repair job as the partnership between Marnus Labuschagne and David Warner had laid a perfect foundation for him and the middle order to flourish, but he never gave any chance to England bowling attack.

He stitched valuable partnerships of 65, 50 and 91 with Labuschagne, Travis Head and Alex Carey respectively to ensure Australia didn’t lose their way after a solid start at the top. Carey scored his maiden half-century in the longest format to lead hosts’ counter-attack from the other end while Smith was wearing the England pace attack down by each passing over.

He was handed over the vice-captaincy alongside Pat Cummins in a contentious decision by the selectors and got the opportunity to lead the side very quickly as Cummins suffered a covid scare in Adelaide.

His efforts ensured Australia reached closer to the 400-run mark at the Tea interval on the second day of the Day-Night Test and England will be under pressure to bat under lights in the final session.

Discover more

Top Stories
news

Most guys didn’t sleep whole night: Nicholas Pooran proud of West Indies fight in last T20I

West Indian stand-in skipper Nicholas Pooran who had got the duty to captain the team on Pakistan tour after regular skipper Kieron Pollard pulled out, said that he was proud of his team’s fight in the last T20I of the three-match series against the hosts. This statement came after the West Indies team’s five members tested Covid-19 positive just ahead of the game and they had to scamper to assemble an 11 man team to play the last game. “Most of the guys haven't slept the whole night and I'm very proud of the unit. I want to commend all the guys for making that extra effort to come out to play today,” Pooran said in the post-match interview after his team lost the game by seven wickets. Talking about the events before the game where the squad’s total strength came down significantly after the cases with three players in Roston Chase, Kyle Mayers and Sheldon Cottrell having tested positive for Covid-19 earlier on December 11. “We spent the whole day wondering whether we should play this game or not. A lot of positives and a lot of guys took their opportunities,” said Pooran who played an instrumental role in his team scoring 207 in their 20 overs. The skipper scored 64 off 37 deliveries. However, with brilliant knocks from Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, both of whom completed big fifties, Pakistan managed to chase down the target with seven balls remaining. but, Pooran was extremely delighted with the performance even as he felt that while batting his men could have scored a lot more runs than they already did. “ [These are] A special bunch of guys and we have competed throughout and well done to the guys. [I] Felt like the last two overs, we lost the momentum. Pakistan bowled well. We were 15 runs short on this wicket,” said the 26-year-old. Due to the Covid-19 scenario, the three-match ODI series between the two teams has now been postponed to June 2022.

news

The Ashes | Pat Cummins allowed to go home, Cricket Australia refutes South Australia govt's charge

Australia Test captain Pat Cummins, who got ruled out of the ongoing Day-Night Ashes Test in Adelaide has been granted permission to head home in New South Wales despite being a close contact of a Covid-19 infected person, Fox Sports reported. Also, Cricket Australia has categorically denied the charge levied by the South Australia government that the board decided to rule the skipper Pat Cummins out of the second Ashes Test on its own and without consultation with the Health Department. CEO Nick Hockely said that the board went through a quick discussion with the health department and decided to exclude Cummins from the Day-Night Test only after getting the confirmation of him being a close contact. “I think the Premier’s reference is that normally they go through quite a detailed process of contact tracing,” Hockley told SEN radio. “The work we did was engage SA Health immediately. And we needed to understand the situation in very (quickly). “We called an emergency meeting with our contacts at SA health and they confirmed Pat would be treated as close contact, so it was very much a collective decision and we had that confirmation through from SA Health. We knew (Cummins was a close contact) ahead of time through our discussions with SA Health.” Cummins’ departure to New South Wales has all but cleared the way for his return to the Australia Test side for the Boxing Day Test at the MCG starting December 26. In his absence, Steve Smith lead the Test side after a gap of four years and Michael Neser got the Baggy green to bowl alongside Mitchell Starc and Jhye Richardson.