Off Stump

While not quite being an extraterrestrial computer , bowlers around the world will want to claim that Steve Smith is not quite human the way he's gone about his run scoring in the last four years since he made his comeback to the Australian Test side. Over 48 matches (and 88 innings) he has averaged 64.85 with 19 hundreds and another 18 fifty plus scores. And (unlike some modern "greats") he's scored these runs everywhere he's played as an away (incl UAE) average of 58.22 and hundreds in every country except the UAE show. Along the way he has become the fastest to 5000 runs among his contemporaries (unless Pujara or du Plessis achieve the possible but highly unlikely feats of scoring 1259/2642 runs in their next 18/36 innings respectively). He's also got comfortably the second highest average ever of batsmen with more than 5000 runs, ahead of the likes of Sobers, Hobbs, and Hammond. And as captain, he's miles ahead of anyone (bar Bradman of course) wh

My abiding memory of Jimmy Adams is as a cagey and defensive batsman and captain. But then it's possible that anyone who had to preside over a declining side, the departures of Ambrose and Walsh, and the regular absences of Lara and Hooper, would be defensive. The bat and the captaincy are long gone but the caginess is not it would seem . Despite this, he did manage to over achieve as a batsman at least with a 40+ Test batting average and one higher than his first class average. If he can replicate that overachievement as an administrator, then he would have done world cricket a real service.

That was a surprise. Not even the most one-eyed of Australia's supporters would have expected them to make this sort of start to the series. A win (after 4502 days as Steven Smith reminded everyone a few times) would have sufficed. A 333 run win on a surface that was bouncing and turning from day one probably felt (and still feels) like three or four Santa Clauses come at once in a golden sledge. And while the two Steves will get most of the plaudits deservedly, Mitchell Starc with his 91 runs in quick time (in both innings) and the double wicket over of Pujara and Kohli played an equal part in turning the match (especially in the first half of it). If Pujara and Kohli had stuck around for a bit longer and India got to 200 in their first innings, an Australian collapse to double digits in the second innings was not out of the question. Funny the way scoreboard pressure works on modern day cricketers, even in Test match cricket. Australia will be further heartened by the fact