The former Australian captain Steve Smith is someone who is known for his quirky behavior on the field, particularly while he is batting. Smith has his own way of leaving the ball and calling his partner yes or no for a run and while the opposition teams, sometimes, find it really amusing, it also annoys them on odd occasions.
Today Steve Smith was batting for Australia in the first innings of the second test match against Sri Lanka at Galle and he was batting very, very well. The surface was good for batting too and for a large part of his innings, no Sri Lankan bowler was able to go past Smith’s bat.
However, towards the end of the day’s play, the ball started spinning a little bit and the Sri Lankan left-arm spinner Prabath Jayasuriya, who was making his debut in test match cricket, managed to beat Steve Smith with a delivery that drifted in for Smith and then spun away sharply.
Generally, when a batsman gets beaten, his reaction is to go a couple of yards forward on the pitch and try and tap the spot from where the ball misbehaved, but Smith actually gave a thumbs up to the bowler for beating him and got ready to play the next ball again.
Steve Smith scored a hundred for Australia in test cricket after more than a year
Smith’s thumbs up to the Sri Lankan debutant was an acknowledgment of the fact that he had bowled a brilliant delivery on a relatively good batting surface and managed to beat him when he was well set.
The former Australian captain later went on to convert his innings into a hundred and returned to the dressing room unbeaten at the stumps with Australia being 289 for 5.
Talk about being in the game.
A ball spins past his outside edge.
Steve Smith: pic.twitter.com/6OPPeDS9w4
— Nikhil 🏏 (@CricCrazyNIKS) July 8, 2022
The ball had spun quite a lot in the first test match which was played between these two teams at the same venue, but the surface for the second test didn’t offer much spin on day one.
Sri Lankan attack had two debutants as well, who were a tad nervous at the start of their spells, which allowed Australia to build a solid foundation.
