New Delhi: Australia captain Steve Smith on Saturday became only the second player, after compatriot and former opener Matthew Hayden, to score 1000 Test runs in a calendar year for the fourth successive year during Day 3's play of third Ashes Test against England at the WACA, Perth.


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At Tea today, Smith was unbeaten on 182 off 269 balls with Australia 18 runs ahead of England's first innings total of 403. But the foundation to his epic knock was laid yesterday, during Day 2.


Smith resumed on 92, and soon became the third quickest (in terms of innings) to reach 22 Test hundreds, going past Sachin Tendulkar, behind Don Bradman and Sunil Gavaskar.


Those were few of the records the 28-year-old created today.


Impressed with Smith's batting, former England captain Michael Vaughan welcomed him into the league of 'Freaks', which already has India captain Virat Kohli.



Earlier this month, Vaughan took to Twitter to hail Kohli as a freak after he became the first ever captain to hit three successive hundreds in a three-Test series.



India's stand-in captain, Rohit Sharma, who himself hit a third ODI double ton against Sri Lanka three days back, hailed Smith's knock today.



And here are some of the tweets:












Not since Sachin and Brian Lara, two batsmen have dominated the cricket world like the two young captains are doing.


Many considered Smith to be a better player in the traditional format, while Kohli dominating the shorter formats.