Smith's Test best puts Australia well on top

In a captaincy tenure that – in terms of days played – is still less than a week old, Steve Smith has enjoyed more ‘finest hours’ than many less-blessed cricketers have found in a full career.

But regardless of how long into the future he leads Australian teams, on the obvious assumption he will take over the job from Michael Clarke, it’s doubtful he will find more cause for satisfaction than that which arose from day two of the third Test against India at the MCG today.

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Before a celebratory crowd of more than 50,000 people, the 25-year-old posted his highest Test score of 192 that included a whirlwind final half-hour in which he launched every shot in the book – and several previously unrecorded – and he led his team to what history indicates is an unassailable total.

Since the first Test cricket match was played in 1877 at the public paddock that became the Melbourne Cricket Ground, history has only seen five first innings scores in excess of the 530 that Australia completed today.

And not that it needs stating, all of those teams ended up victors.

India will begin day three 422 in arrears – 222 short of the follow-on target – and with all but one wicket up their sleeve, the exception being luckless opener Shikhar Dhawan who fell for 28 to a brilliant, anticipatory, low diving catch at second slip by – Steve Smith.

The tourists hopes of saving the Test will rest initially come the morning with incumbent pair Murali Vijay (54) and Cheteshwar Pujara (25), though the latter could have easily been on his way had Brad Haddin shown Smith-like acumen in scooping a low chance off Josh Hazlewood when the batsman was on 12.

But their chances of overturning their reputation for wonkiness when playing Test cricket away from India would seem to have already evaporated, disappearing before their eyes as they handed control of the Test to Australia in another forgettable session.

Or two, if you accept that it wasn’t already lost as Smith and Ryan Harris made merry in the hour before tea.

The hard yards and disciplined detail that India put into the opening day that ended with the game in the balance was jettisoned in favour of blind adherence to a misguided plan of attack on the second morning.

Realising that an out-of-form Haddin was the sole obstacle between India’s bowlers and their Australian counterparts, and recalling the success they enjoyed against him by taking aim at his ribs and above they set about their short-pitched strategy.

As a tactic, it carried the key elements of historic precedent, timeliness and was targeted at an acknowledged soft spot given Haddin’s recent run of indifferent form that had yielded no score of 25 in his previous dozen Test innings.

What it fatally lacked, however, was the element of surprise.

Having employed it the previous evening to unsettle but not dislodge the veteran vice-captain, the Indians seemed unprepared for the fact that Haddin would be when the assault resumed this morning.

So as Dhoni and his bowlers persisted with a barrage of short-pitched bowling with the leg-side trap set and Haddin simply sweated on it, got himself either inside, beneath or leg-side of the ball as circumstances dictated and piled on the runs.

Mostly in boundaries and largely unorthodox.

A disdainful forehand smash over mid-wicket that signalled view about the tactic. A pull shot that he latched on to so early it sizzled to the long-off rope.

When an early drinks break was called after 45 minutes and nine overs of play, the Australians – whose progress on day one had been slowed to less than three runs per over – had piled on 52 at almost one per ball with Haddin contributing more than half of them on his way to a half-century.

Little wonder that Dhoni trotted from the field during the break, perhaps to double check with coach Duncan Fletcher if this was indeed plan A and – if that was the case – how precisely this was going to deliver the victory that India needed to keep a notional grasp on the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

By the time Haddin departed soon after – caught behind from a bottom edge as he tried to draw his bat from a rare delivery landed on that length that traditionally causes batsmen trouble – Australia was steaming towards 400 while India’s sails hung limp.

A breezy 28 from Mitchell Johnson was then reduced to a footnote as Smith and Harris brutally took hold of the game and waved it mockingly beyond the tourists’ reach with an eighth-wicket partnership of 106 from 144 balls.

Any suggestion that India’s bowlers were adhering to any strategy other than hopes of an imminent declaration allowed Harris to help himself to a career-high Test score that fleetingly – when he lifted the penultimate ball he faced into Bay 13 – raised murmurs of a maiden Test hundred.

That was the signal for Smith to embrace the third phase of his innings that begun with circumspection, flowed seamlessly into consolidation and was then crowned by a final half hour of unbridled celebration.

In lifting his team beyond 500, Smith also set a new personal benchmark for highest Test score and appeared set to raise that bar above 200 until his selfless quest for runs at the expense of orthodoxy saw him bowled by a delivery he was attempting to scoop over the 'keeper's head.

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Smith shows a weakness for the ramp shot // Getty Images

If this morning’s blueprint can be relied upon, expect the Indian bowlers to target the Australian skipper’s susceptibility in executing the ramp shot when he bats in the second innings.

Or if there is no Australian second innings here, in the Sydney Test.

In his current form, there’s a strong chance Smith will again be closing in on 200 when that strategy bears fruit.