Skipper Smith joins all-time greats

769 – The number of runs Steve Smith has tallied this series.

The total is a world record effort for a four-Test series ever played, with no other batsman scoring more in a series with a maximum of matches.

Smith surpassed former England captain Graham Gooch, who amassed 752 runs in three Tests against India in 1990.

Sir Viv Richards (829) and Sunil Gavaskar (774) have piled on more runs than Smith when playing four Tests in a series but they were in five-match series with both missing a match each.

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Smith’s series numbers (769) are also the highest by any Australian in a series against India and the second highest overall irrespective of the number of matches in the series.

The 25-year-old broke the 67-year old Australian record set by Sir Don Bradman (715 runs against India in 1947-48).

Only West Indian great Sir Everton Weekes has been more productive than Smith against India, but his 779 runs came across five matches in the 1948 series.

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52.36 – The batting average of Steven Smith’s Test career.

That aggregate is the third highest for any Australian batsman who has at least 2000 runs, with only Don Bradman (99.94) and Greg Chappell (53.86) ahead of him.

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5 – The current position of Steven Smith in the ICC Rankings for batsmen in Tests.

Smith is the highest ranked batsman from Australia and sits behind Angelo Mathews (4), Hashim Amla (3), Kumar Sangakkara (2) and AB de Villiers (1) worldwide.

After a strong batting performance at the SCG (117 and 71), he is likely to go above Mathews and may even replace Amla at three.

25 – The age of Steven Smith - the youngest captain among active cricketers.

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6 - The number of 50-plus scores by Chris Rogers in consecutive innings.

Rogers became the fourth opening batsman from Australia – after Mark Taylor, Phil Jaques and David Warner (who had this streak as recently as last year) – to achieve the feat.

Five other Aussies have also scored fifties in 6 consecutive innings.

The world record is seven innings, jointly held by Andy Flower, Sir Everton Weekes, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Kumar Sangakkara.

24 – The number of Tests taken by Ravichandran Ashwin to compile 100 wickets and 1000 runs.

He is the third-fastest to reach this double mark in terms of matches and the ninth Indian to reach the total overall. Only Ian Botham (21) and Vinoo Mankad (23) reached the milestone in fewer Tests.

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213 - The number of runs scored by Australia in the post-tea session on Day Four at the SCG in 34 overs at a run-rate of 6.26.

The home side were 1-38 after six overs at Tea and then added 213 runs in the last session to finish the day 6-251 after 40 overs.

In last ten overs of the day, Australia added a KFC T20 Big Bash League-esque 88 runs, largely thanks to 66 off 39 balls by Joe Burns.

0 – The number of times a target of 300-plus has been successfully chased at Sydney Cricket Ground.

The record chase at the venue was 287 by Australia against South Africa in 2006 – the famous match also remembered for Ricky Ponting’s twin centuries in his 100th Test.

With Australia’s lead 348, even if there is an overnight declaration, India will need a record effort to have at least one win in the series.