Never satisfied
Graeme Smith has made his point
Stat of the Moment by Andrew Miller
01-Aug-2003
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Graeme Smith: a Bradman-esque performance |
Graeme Smith has made his point. Now he is intent on labouring it. Before this series, the question on everyone's lips was "is he up to it?" Now, however, England are being shown just how up for it he really is.
Smith, in case anyone has failed to realise, is a mere 22 years old. But already he is the proud owner of South Africa's individual batting record, a glut of partnership records with Herschelle Gibbs and Gary Kirsten, as well as the small matter of the South African captaincy. But, Smith's achievement in scoring 250s in consecutive Tests has propelled him into territory reserved for the giants of the game, Sir Don Bradman and Sir Garry Sobers.
The grandest ovation of the day was reserved for the moment when Smith surpassed Bradman's legendary 254, for 60 years the highest score in a Test at Lord's. Only Graham Gooch's 333 stands above him. By the time his innings was brought to an end on 259, Smith had taken his series tally to 621.
Only five men had previously managed even 500 runs at such an early stage. Gooch's 333-and-all-that came in a three-Test series against India in 1990, while Wally Hammond averaged a world-record 563 in his two-Test thumping of New Zealand in 1932-33. Andy Flower's runs also came in a two-Test series, against India in 2000-01, while Sanath Jayasuriya was yet another to take India to the cleaners, on Colombo's flaccid pitches in 1997. Zaheer Abbas, who pops up in the list twice, totalled 541 runs in his first two Tests of 1978-79 ... once again, against India.
Smith joins Bradman as the only man to have topped 600 runs in three consecutive innings, at any stage of a series. Bradman just pips Smith - his scores of 304, 244 and 77 against England in 1934 come to an extremely grand total of 625 runs. And Sobers wasn't far off the mark either. He totalled 599 against Pakistan in 1957-58, starting with his world-record 365 not out, and following up with innings of 125 and 109 not out. And like Smith, and Bradman in 1930, Sobers was a mere whippersnapper at the time, at just 21 years old.
Smith has six complete innings still available to him in this series, and at this rate, the big one is an absurdly realistic possibility. At the same stage of his all-conquering season in 1930, Bradman had managed a mere 393 of his record 974 runs. Given all that he has achieved so far, who's to say Smith won't have reached 1000 runs in the series before the end of The Oval Test?
Most runs in first two Tests of a series
Player Runs Opposition Season
GC Smith 621 Eng 2003
GA Gooch 579 Ind 1990
ST Jayasuriya 571 Ind 1997
WR Hammond 563 NZ 1932-33
Zaheer Abbas 541 Ind 1978-79
A Flower 540 Ind 2000-01
H Sutcliffe 477 Aus 1924-25
DL Amiss 469 WI 1973-74
Hanif Mohammad 465 WI 1957-58
DCS Compton 436 SA 1947
R Dravid 432 Zim 2000-01
PA de Silva 432 Pak 1996-97
MA Taylor 429 Pak 1998-99
A Flower 422 SA 2001-02
DG Bradman 421 Eng 1946-47
A Melville 418 Eng 1947
AH Jones 413 SL 1990-91
GS Chappell 411 NZ 1973-74
RT Ponting 410 WI 2002-03
Zaheer Abbas 401 Ind 1982-83
Source: Travis Basevi