Australia’s ace batter Steve Smith is currently serving Sussex in the County Championship. Despite not being able to score runs with his willow, he has managed to keep himself in the headline after grabbing a one-handed screamer while fielding. He did the magic on day four of Sussex’s draw against Leicestershire, Smith was standing at second slip and that is when he took a one-handed catch to dismiss Rehan Ahmed for 9 in the second innings.
Talking about Smith’s batting, he made 3 runs off 14 balls against Leicestershire as he got out LBW by seamer Wiaan Mulder. Steve has agreed to play three matches for Sussex in order to prepare himself for the upcoming World Test Championship (WTC) final against India, followed by five-match Ashes series.
Earlier, while playing his debut match against Worcestershire at New Road, Umpires Chris Watts and Peter Hartley came in between and informed Smith about his helmet not meeting the standards by the ECC for the County Championship. Australia batter's helmet did not have a neck protector and as a result, the match was put on hold for 10 minutes until one was fitted into his helmet, as reported by Wisden.
According to the Appendix A2.3 of the County Championship rule, “A protective helmet is headwear made of hard material and designed to protect the head, neck and/or the face. For the purposes of interpreting these Laws of Cricket, such a description will include faceguards, grilles, and neck guards.”
In the same match, India’s Test specialist Cheteshwar Pujara scored 136 runs and also joined Indian batting legends in an elite list by becoming only the sixth batter to make 19,000 or more runs in first-class cricket in the history of Indian cricket. Former India legend Sunil Gavaskar stands at the top of the list as he scored 25,834 runs from 348 matches followed by Sachin Tendulkar who collected 25,396 runs from 310 games.