Australia's Steve Smith (left) in action against India on Sunday.
Australia's no.1 batsman Steve Smith has once again became India's achilles heel as the batsman scored back-to-back ton in the series to become only the fourth batsman to score three consecutive centuries against the sub-continent giants with a 64-ball 104 in Sydney on Sunday.
Before falling to Hardik Pandya in the 42nd over, while trying toi chase a wide delivery, Smith smashed 14 fours and two sixes to put 292 runs on board and had a 100-plus stand with Marnus Labuschagne for the third wicket. Labuschagne's 61-ball 70 and Glenn Maxwell's 29-ball 63 later took Australia to a mammoth 389/4.
In his previous two innings before this against India, the right-handed batsman scored 105 runs in the first ODI at the same venue two days ago and shot a 131 in Chennai back in January. A match before the 131, Smith missed out on a century by mere two runs in Rajkot and scored a 70-ball 69 in the first ODI in Mumbai. Aussies won the series 3-0.
Back in 1983, Pakistan great Zaheer Abbas became the first batsman to score three consecutive centuries against India in ODIs while Nasir Jamshed repeated the feat in 2012-13. The same year Quinton de Kock repeated the feat.
For Smith, though, India continues to be his favourite opponent as 12 of his 18 ODI centuries came against the Men in Blue. This places him second behind Ricky Ponting (14) in the all-time list of most centuries by a batsman against India in the limited format. West Indies great Sir Vivian Richards and Sri Lanka's dependable Kumar Sangakkara are next in the queue with 11 centuries each.
