Date-stamped : 10 Dec93 - 19:52 The Guardian 22 May 1993 Aussie barrage brushes aside Smith's record MIKE SELVEY AT EDGBASTON Second Texaco one-day international: England v Australia AUSTRALIA, with a six-wicket victory, clinched the three-match series, taking the pounds 10,000 cheque, the Texaco Trophy and rendering tomorrow's match at Lord's something of an anti-climax. Yet two centuries - one rippling with muscularity, the other elegant and deft - and a vintage innings of improvisation from the Australian captain, Allan Border, will remain in the memory from this second one-day international. With England asked to bat first, Robin Smith made an unbeaten 167, his fourth century in one-day internationals and the highest score by an England batsman in this form of cricket. England made 277 for five, the result of a spectacular climax that saw 102 runs scored from the last seven overs, 95 more than had accrued from the first seven. In some circumstances that to- tal might have been sufficient, but not against an Australia side bristling with batting class. With the evening reverting to sunshine, Mark Waugh and Border flicked, scampered, stroked and clumped out a fourth-wicket par- tership of 168 that saw them to the brink of victory. Waugh reached 113 and deserved to be there at the end, but with 15 wanted, he clipped a catch to Neil Fairbrother at midwicket. It was left to Border, 86 not out, to smear the winning boundary with nine deliveries to spare. Beauty, on the day, had beaten the beast, but there was consola- tion for Smith, who because of the nature of his effort in the conditions at the time, took the Man of the Match award from Sir Richard Hadlee. Smith had played what must be the most brilliant, brutally des- tructive limited-overs innings to thunder from the bat of an Eng- land player. In a 207-minute innings, much of it played under leaden skies and in light sepulchral enough to tempt any seamer, he defied the darting new ball then consolidated. With overs run- ning out and an inadequate total in the offing, he launched a withering attack on Border and his men. The 18,500 crowd rose in raptures and the Society of Cricket Statisticians went diving for their record books. From just 163 balls, Smith hit 17 fours and three sixes, each one punched out with a steamhammer bottom hand. Top hands, as Gordon Gekko would have said, are for wimps. Only Viv Richards, who made 189 against England a dozen years ago - the most spectacular one-day innings ever - and 181 against Sri Lanka, has hit a bigger knock against a Test-playing country. Just to be elevated to the level of perhaps the most un- compromising batsman to play the one-day game is tribute in it- self. Smith eclipsed David Gower's 158 - made 10 years ago against New Zealand in Brisbane as the highest by an England player - on the way compiling 50 for the fourth wicket with Neil Fairbrother and 142 for the fifth in 21 overs with Graham Thorpe, who played busily and well yet contributed only 36. Smith's innings had contrasting pre- and post-lunch phases. He was at the crease as early as the third over, to find a pitch that had fretted under the Brumbrella for 36 hours, with Stewart out and Craig McDermott rampant. His first desire was simply to occupy the crease and see what happened. Inside 15 overs, Gooch and Hick had followed Stewart, and Smith had made just 26. By lunch he had his half-century, but it had been desperately hard graft. The transformation, unexpected and dangerous, came when Smith was approaching what would even then have been a fine century. He gave hint of a gear change by clipping Paul Reiffel like a bullet over midwicket, but no one could have foreseen the carnage that followed as he blitzed from 91 to 153 in 23 balls. Thorpe could only stand and gawp. A reply to that would need to be special, and after Mark Taylor, Matthew Hayden and David Boon were all back in the pavilion, it was provided by Waugh and Border. Gooch knows all about this pair, both of whom had spent time at Essex, but he and his sea- mers were powerless to contain them. When Smith had batted, the arena seemed minute as he pummelled the boundary; now it looked vast as the two ran the England fielders ragged. Waugh picked runs off his legs at will, like Azharuddhin or Greg Chappell. Border is just a master of placement and pragmatism, and none of the England bowlers had any answer. By the end, he had been at the crease for only 96 balls. Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)