Smith falls one run short of 10,000 club – and he’s not the first to do so

Getting to the batting milestone of 10,000 career runs isn’t always easy – as Steve Smith found out at the SCG on Sunday.

Steve Smith walks off the ground after being dismissed during day three of the fifth cricket Test match between Australia and India. Picture: AFP

Getting to the batting milestone of 10,000 career runs isn’t always easy – as Steve Smith found out at the SCG on Sunday.

The Australian needed 38 runs in the fifth Test against India at the SCG but fell five short in the first innings when he was dismissed for 33 and then was stranded on 9999 after getting out for just four runs in the second, caught out by a rising ball that he fended to gully.

Steve Smith fends a rising delivery from India’s Prasidh Krishna to gully, where he was caught one short of his 10,000 career runs. Picture: Getty Images

Remarkably, Smith is not the only batsman in history to be caught in the nervous 9990s, let alone fall one run short of 10,000 at the end of a Test. Nor is he the first to be dismissed twice in the 9990s.

Sri Lankan Mahela Jayawardene went into the first Test of the series against South Africa at Centurion needing 46 runs to reach the milestone.

In a difficult Test that the visitors lost by an innings, Jayawardene was dismissed for 30 in the first innings and 15 in the second. Rubbing salt in the wounds, Jayawardene was run out by Jacques Kallis with his career tally on 9999.

The Sri Lankan would finally reach the milestone in the first innings of the second Test in Durban, with an innings of 31, and finished his career with 11,814 runs, putting him 10th on the list of career runscorers.

Englishman Alastair Cook too can relate to what Smith experienced. He went into the second Test against Sri Lanka at Chester-le-Street in 2016, needing 20 runs to reach his 10,000 milestone. Like Smith, Cook fell five short in the first innings, dismissed for 15 runs and 9995 in his career – but unlike the Australian, the English captain got there in the second innings with 47 not out as England reached their victory target of 79 runs.

Cook remains the sixth highest runscorer in Test history with 12,472.

West Indian Brian Lara, the fastest man to reach 10,000 by getting there in his 111th Test, made heavy weather of the final few runs during a series in England in 2004.

In the second Test in Birmingham, the left-hander needing 115 runs, was on his way to a brilliant century before Andrew Flintoff captured his wicket with Lara on 95. Needing 20 in the second innings, Lara was out for just 13 (9993 in his career), caught by Flintoff off Ashley Giles, as the West Indies crashed to a heavy defeat.

Two weeks later in Manchester, Lara was dismissed for a duck on the opening day, bowled by Flintoff, making him Smith’s only predecessor to be dismissed twice in the 9990s. Finally, in the second innings, the West Indian reached the seven runs he needed – before promptly being dismissed by Flintoff again as the visitors surrendered again.

Lara remains the eighth highest runscorer with 11,953.

Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar becomes the first man to reach 10,000 in his second last Test, against Pakistan in Amhedabad in 1987

Sunil Gavaskar was the first man to reach 10,000 runs in 1987, in what would be his final Test series. Needing 173 runs at the start of the five-Test series on home soil, the Indian opener started well with 91 in the first Test but missed the second Test and struggled in the third, scoring a duck and 24. In the fourth Test in Ahmedabad needing 58 more runs, Gavaskar sparked jubilant scenes when he passed the milestone in an innings of 63.

Each of the three Australian mean to reach 10,000 runs did so by reaching 50 runs or more in that innings. Allan Border was the second man to hit the milestone, in an innings of 74; Steve Waugh got there during a century (102) against England; and Ricky Ponting passed the mark on the way to 65.

Steve Waugh walks off the SCG in 2003 after a last-ball-of-the-day century and becoming the third player to pass 10,000 Test runs. Picture: Mark Evans

However Waugh had a tortuous path to 10,000. Having passed 9000 during an Ashes series in July 2001, it would take him another 18 months and 19 Tests to get to 9931, during a lean time when he managed just two centuries – both abroad – and four half-centuries. Finally, at the SCG, he achieved the milestone.

Smith is expected to resume his bid to join his three Australian predecessors when Australia starts a two-Test series against Sri Lanka in Galle on January 29.