One of the best modern-day cricketers to come out of Australia, Steve Smith will celebrate his 31st birthday today (June 2, 2020). Smith made his debut for the national side in 2010 as a specialist leg-spinner but over the years has evolved himself into a dominant batsman in all three formats of the game, mostly asserting his supremacy in the longest format.<\/p>\n
Smith started his career as a bowler and was first drafted in the team as a leg-spinner. However, he went on to hone his batting skills and focused more on the specialisation. Smith has now played 73 Tests, 125 One-Day Internationals (ODIs) and 39 T20Is. And is Australia\u2019s batting mainstay.<\/p>\n
Smith was born on June 02, 1989, Sydney, New South Wales. The right-handed batsman turns 31 today (Tuesday). And what better time to look bat at some of his best performances with the bat. The 31-year-old boasts of an impressive career thus far and it is very difficult to pick his best knocks. However, we narrow down on Smith\u2019s four innings\u00a0(picked randomly) to celebrate his birthday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 1.164 vs New Zealand, SCG 2016 (ODI)<\/strong><\/p>\n Smith notched up almost run-a-ball 164 as he bailed his side out of trouble against Trans-Tasman neighbours. At one stage, Australia were 92 for four and ended up posting 324 for eight. Smith\u2019s century in front of the home crowd was instrumental in setting up Australia\u2019s 68-run win.<\/p>\n 2. 109 vs India, Pune 2017 (Test)<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Imagine a non-Asian batsman scoring a century on a pitch on which the Indian team fails to go past even 150-run mark in two innings. It appears surreal. But that\u2019s what Smith did in 2017 in Pune. On a spin-friendly track, Smith scored 109 off 222 balls while batting at number three. Australia gained a first-innings lead of 155 after bundling out India for 105 runs. In their second innings, Australia then posted 285, thanks to Smith\u2019s impressive century on a difficult track. India were set 441 to win, but the hosts faltered for just 107 runs.<\/p>\n 3. 144, 142 vs England, Edgbaston 2019 (Test)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n In his first Test after the ban (for involvement in ball-tampering), Smith made a fabulous restart. The right-handed batsman scored two \u2018almost identical\u2019 centuries in the Ashes Test and helped Australia win the game by 251 runs.<\/p>\n 4. 211 vs England, Manchester 2019 (Test)<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n During Ashes 2019, fans once again witnessed Smith masterclass as he slammed a double century against England. Returning after missing out a Test due to concussion, Smith scored 211 off 319 balls as he helped Australia post 497. The visitors eventually won the Test by 185 runs.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s wishing Steve Smith a happy birthday. Hope he keeps the fans entertained with his unique batting skills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Steve Smith celebrates his 31st birthday today. Here we look into some of his best knocks in international cricket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":23666,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cricket"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}