Steve Smith scores 50, Australia share honours on day one

Melbourne: Steve Smith played another captain’s knock and Chris Rogers and Shane Watson hit fifties as Australia shared the opening day of the third Test with India in Melbourne on Friday. Before a huge Boxing Day crowd of almost 70,000, Smith joined teammate David Warner in reaching 1,000 Test runs for the calendar year with his unbeaten 72. At the close, Australia were 259 for five after winning the toss with Brad Haddin seeking a confidence-boosting innings as the other not out batsman on 23.

Smith passed 50 for the fourth time in five innings in this series among them an unconquered 162 in Adelaide and 133 in Brisbane. So far he has amassed 447 runs at 223.5 for the series. Smith, who won his first Test as skipper in four days in Brisbane last weekend, was well positioned for his third ton of the series after Rogers and Watson missed out on cashing in on solid starts.

Rogers hit his third straight half-century of the series and Watson made 52 in a 115-run stand before they were dismissed five minutes apart in the hour after lunch. The pair had put on 59 runs off 131 balls for the fourth wicket. Rogers, who scored 116 in last season’s corresponding Boxing Day Test against England, pushed at paceman Mohammed Shami and was snapped up behind by M.S. Dhoni for 57.

Watson followed six balls later in off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin’s seventh over with an ill-judged sweep shot and was out leg before wicket for 52 in 89 balls.Watson had a let off on 37 nearing lunch when Shikhar Dhawan fumbled him at second slip at the third attempt off Shami. It was Watson’s 23rd half-century in Tests with just a below-par conversion rate of four centuries in his 55th Test for the senior top order batsman.

It was the 27th time in 102 Test innings Watson had been dismissed leg before wicket.Shaun Marsh again failed to go on after a solid start and was caught behind by Dhoni off Shami with no addition to his tea score of 32 off 83 balls. Debutant Joe Burns was given a rousing welcome as he came out to bat at four wickets down and got a roar with his first scoring shot off Shami for three. But he lasted 27 balls before he attempted a pull shot on 13 and bottom-edged through to Dhoni off Yadav.   

Scorecard

Australia (1st innings): C. Rogers c Dhoni b Shami 57, D. Warner c Dhawan b Yadav 0, S. Watson lbw b Ashwin 52, S. Smith (batting) 72, S. Marsh c Dhoni b Shami 32, J. Burns c Dhoni b Yadav 13, B. Haddin (batting) 23. Extras (b1, lb6, w1, nb2) 10. Total (for five wickets in 90 overs) 259.
FoW: 1-0, 2-115, 3-115, 4-184, 5-216.
Bowling: Ishant 21-6-54-0, Yadav 20-2-69-2, Shami 17-4-55-2, Ashwin 27-7-60-1, Vijay 5-0-14-0.