When Steve Smith struck a brilliant century against India at Sydney, he joined Wally Hammond (1928-36) as the only batsmen to score 50+ in five consecutive test innings at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Steve Smith was under enormous pressure after failures in the first two test matches of the India tour of Australia 2020-21. To be honest, it was not a big deal. It is common for batsmen to fail in a couple of matches and then bounce back, especially for batsmen of the quality of Steve Smith, Kane Williamson, Joe Root and Virat Kohli - they are bound to come good after a couple of failures.

However, since Smith has always been piling on the runs against India, it came as a bit of a surprise both to the Indian and the Australian camp when he could not click in the first two matches of the series.

As a result, there were various theories being purported in the media about his weakness against spin bowling and the line of attack from the Indian spinners. Smith took everything with a grain of salt as he did not entertain the idea of him being out of form in his interactions with the media.

As expected, it did not take long for Steven Smith to make a mark. He struck 131 in the first innings of the Sydney test and then added another 81 in the second innings to put Australia in a commanding position.

"I read a lot of things and plenty of people said I was out of form so it was nice to come back into form, if that's what you want to call it. I mean, it was only about three or four weeks ago that I scored two hundreds at the Sydney Cricket Ground. So yeah, it kind of just makes me laugh sometimes when people say that kind of thing," Smith said.

"I decided to be a bit more positive. I think early on I hit him (Ashwin) over his head, sort of just put a bit of pressure on him. So, yeah, it was a concerted effort to do that and I was happy with the way I played him," he concluded.

The SCG ton was his 27th test century - the equal 6th most for Australia and the 8th test century against India. It was also his first test century since the 2019 Ashes and the first test century by an Australian against India since Smith's 111 at Dharamsala in March 2017.