Indian players react as they celebrate the dismissal of Australia's Steve Smith (centre) during play on day three of the second cricket test between India and Australia in Melbourne on Monday.
Steve Smith began the Australia India home series as the hosts' best bet in the batting but the ICC World No. 1 batsman has really found it hard to get going with just nine runs in his last three outings. His recent poor run of form was evident on Monday as well as Smith was bowled by a delivery that pitched on the leg side.
It was one of those deliveries by Bumrah which just clipped and dislodged one bail before going to Rishabh Pant. The keeper was among the first to realise the dismissal as both Smith and Bumrah were unaware of the fact that the bail has come off after the slightest of touch.
With these twin failures at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Smith recorded 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.
