AUS vs NZ: Steve Smith booed by New Zealand fans in Boxing Day Test at MCG
Australia's batting mainstay Steve Smith was on Thursday booed by vocal New Zealand supporters during their team's first Boxing Day Test in 32 years at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
After opener David Warner was dismissed by Tim Southee, Smith came on to the crease nearing lunch on Day One of the ongoing second Test between the two sides.
As Smith walked onto the ground, boos echoed around the MCG, thus making him angry.
According to a report in stuff.co.nz, some of the Kiwi fans in the Olympic Stand even waved what looked like sandpaper, thus reminding the former Australia captain of his role in the infamous sandpaper gate controversy which took place last year in Cape Town.
During his short spell before the lunch, Smith was visibly furious after umpire Nigel Llong twice robbed him of runs with rulings about his batting against Neil Wagner.
The right-handed batter twice shouldered arms and the short balls crashed into his body before bouncing away. However, when he tried to go for a run, Llong ruled Smith had played no shot, so the runs would not be awarded.
The 30-year-old angrily argued he was taking evasive action to avoid getting hit in a dangerous place by the short ball barrage.
"Well the umpire's wrong," Shane Warne said on Fox Cricket. "Steve Smith has every right to be angry because the interpretation Nigel Llong is giving at the minute is incorrect."
"The rule is if you evade a short ball and it hits any part of your body you're allowed to run even if you don't play a shot.
"I'm sure someone's going to have a chat to Nigel Llong in the lunch break because Steve Smith's livid and rightly so," he added.
Meanwhile, Smith entered the top 10 of the all-time leading run-scorers for Australia in Test cricket. He went past former Test captain Greg Chappell's tally of 7,110 runs with a comfortable single in the 51st over, moving into 10th position on Australia's list of all-time Test run-scorers.
