Steve Smith second-quickest in innings to 6,000 Test runs
Friday 5 January 2018 11:04, UK
Stuart Broad’s brace of sixes on day two of the fifth Ashes Test means only Adam Gilchrist has more Test maximums at the SCG… Benedict Bermange has the numbers.
Stuart Broad's two sixes in his innings of 31 took his total to seven at the Sydney Cricket Ground in just 103 runs scored there - only one player, Adam Gilchrist, has hit more sixes in Tests at the SCG.
When Steve Smith reached 26 he became the 64th batsman to score 6,000 Test runs - only one of them, Don Bradman, took fewer innings to get there:
Don Bradman, 68 innings
Steve Smith. 111 innings
Garry Sobers, 111 innings
Wally Hammond, 114 innings
Len Hutton, 116 innings
Kumar Sangakkara, 116 innings
Ken Barrington, 116 innings
Smith is the fourth-youngest of the 64 batsmen to achieve the feat, too:
Sachin Tendulkar, 26 years, 313 days
Alastair Cook, 27 years, 43 days
Graeme Smith, 27 years, 323 days
Steve Smith, 28 years, 217 days
AB de Villiers, 28 years, 329 days
Australia have only had four wicket-taking bowlers in this series so far - Mitchell Starc (21), Josh Hazlewood (20), Pat Cummins (19) and Nathan Lyon (18).
If they remain the only bowlers to take wickets in England's second innings, it would be the first time in Test history a side has had as few as four bowlers taking wickets in a series of five or more games.
The attendance on day two in Sydney was 43,846, taking the total for this series to 771,822 and past the total attendance for the last two Ashes series in Australia - with three more days to play there is every chance this series could surpass the 2006/07 series total
1970/71 - 608,357
1974/75 - 777,333
1978/79 - 385,147
1982/83 - 554, 142
1986/87 - 336,466
1990/91 - 394,255
1994/95 - 478,126
1998/99 - 545,820
2002/03 - 568,774
2006/07 - 819,627
2010/11 - 764,463
2013/14 - 753,868
2017/18 - 771,822
