Twin failures at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in the Boxing Day game against India led to Steve Smith recording his worst batting numbers in a Test on home soil.
In the opening session on day 1 at the MCG, Smith was outdone by R Ashwin for the second time in the series, falling prey to the leg-gully strategy. He departed for a duck, his first against India in international cricket, first since November 2013 in Tests, and a fifth overall.
In the second innings, Smith looked to be more resilient against Ashwin, who found both sides of the edges in the series. And just when it seemed that Smith looked up and running, Jasprit Bumrah found the top of the leg stump from around his pads. Smith departed for eight runs after facing 40 deliveries.
With just eight runs in the Boxing Day Test, Smith recorded his lowest ever aggregate in a Test match on home soil (dismissed twice) and second-lowest in his career after his tally of just three runs that he had scored back in 2013 at Lord's against England. Two of his other lowest aggregates - 6 & 5 and 5 & 7 - came against England in 2015 and South Africa in 2017/18 respectively.
Smith is presently having his worst home summer having managed scores of 1 and 1* in the Adelaide game, leaving him with an aggregate of just 10 runs in four innings.
It has now been 14 innings since his last Test century which was scored in the Ashes in Manchester, implying two back-to-back home summers without a century. In the previous home summer, he scored 4, 36, 43, 16, 85, 7 and 63.
