The nervous 9990s: On way to one exclusive club, Smith joins another

Between 12.24pm and 12.25pm, cameras panned to Smith’s wife Dani accordingly, sitting in the same stand her husband was gesticulating in the direction of.

Having seen off the early threats of Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj, Smith’s uncharacteristic lapse sees him join one of Test cricket’s most exclusive clubs – a quartet of batting greats (Brian Lara, Mahela Jayawardene and Alastair Cook) to have been dismissed in the nervous 9990s.

And wouldn’t you know it, at almost the exact same time 24 hours later, Smith wavered once more. One run, one measly, minor little run, shy of 10,000 for his career.

The nerves may well have been all too real as India refused to go away, Smith the third wicket to fall in their pursuit of a series winning and generation-defining target of 162. It certainly looked that way as Smith survived a narrow LBW shout from Krishna, before fending a difficult delivery to Yashasvi Jaiswal at gully.

A batting nerd of the highest order, Smith will take little comfort from joining Jayawardene in being dismissed with 9999 runs to his name. Or sitting alongside Lara in managing to fall twice in the 9990s, just months after plundering his world record 400 not out against England in 2004.

The West Indies maestro limped across the five-figure line at Manchester in the return series, hitting his 10,000th Test run after a first-innings duck thanks to Andrew Flintoff. Lara made it to seven and his milestone in the second dig before Flintoff nabbed him again.

Just as rare as Smith’s lapse in concentration was his falling short of the roundest of numbers.

Of the nine times Smith has passed a thousand-run mark in Tests, six times he’s done it with a century. Each of his 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000 and 5000-run milestones were marked with a triple-figure score.

The last of those 1000-run blocks, when Smith moved from 5000 to 6000, was him at his absolute peak, scoring those runs at a Bradmanesque average of 90 between March 2017 and January 2018.

Unsurprisingly, Smith’s first 1000 runs and the most recent four-figure block have been the toughest of his career. Questions over his form and possible retirement date in Test cricket abounded before back-to-back hundreds this summer.

Smith’s march from 9000 runs – passed at Lord’s during last year’s Ashes – to 9999 have come at an average of 37.03.

Not since starting out as a leg spinning No.8 more than a decade ago has Smith averaged less than 40 over a 1000-run period.

He will be the 13th member, and fourth Australian, of Test cricket’s 10,000-run club soon enough, with Australia’s next Test outing against Sri Lanka in Galle starting at the end of the month.

Which actually makes the tale of Smith’s twin dismissals in the nervous 9990s all the more memorable.

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