Smith equals Younis' record

He also breaks the record of scoring most Test tons against India

Australia's star batter Steve Smith on Friday joined an elite group of cricket legends, including Pakistan's Younis Khan and West Indies' Brian Lara, after scoring his 34th century on the second day of the ongoing Boxing Day Test against India.

The right-handed batter, who scored his second consecutive ton in the aforementioned fixture, became only the 11th batter in the history of Test cricket to score 34 centuries.

Consequently, Smith drew level with legendary figures like Pakistan's Younis, West Indies' Lara, India's Sunil Gavaskar and Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene in the list of batters with most Test centuries, led by India's batting great Sachin Tendulkar, who has 51 hundreds to his name in the longest format.

Smith has also moved in touching distance to the tallies of two more greats, India's Rahul Dravid and England's Joe Root, who have scored 36 Test centuries each.

Furthermore, his brilliant knock in the ongoing Boxing Day Test, helped him surpass Root to become the batter with most Test centuries against India (11).

For the unversed, Smith's second consecutive century set the platform for the hosts to post a daunting total of 474 in the penultimate Test against India.

In-form Smith and skipper Cummins stretched their overnight seventh-wicket partnership to 112 runs to take their team's total past the 400-run mark.

Smith, on the other hand, stood his ground firm and put together crucial partnerships with Mitchell Starc (15) and Nathan Lyon (13) before falling victim to Akash Deep in a bizarre fashion.

The right-handed batter remained the top-scored for Australia with 140 off 197 deliveries, studded with 13 fours and three sixes.

In response, India were 164/5 at the conclusion of the second day, trailing by a further 310 runs.