VIDEO | Steve Smith walks back amidst boos and applause as Sheldon Cottrell pulls off miracle at ropes

After the Australian top-order succumbed at the face of fiery short balls, Steve Smith was their only hope to bail them out of the woods and he did it with elan. By negating his instinct of scoring freely, Smith retreated into a rather Test match approach and waited for the bad balls to send out of the ground. While that approach helped stabilize the innings, Nathan Coulter-Nile ensured the momentum shifted to a more attacking mode and Australia, at one point, were genuine in the course to score 300.

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However, on the second ball of the 45th over, Cottrell bowled a wide outside off-stump delivery and the former Aussie captain played a stylish whip by targeting the backward square leg fence. That was meant to go for a six considering Trent Bridge’s short boundary in the backward square fence but Cottrell ran to his left from fine leg and tried to hold onto the catch. Even though it looked like the ball would go past him, he stuck his left hand out and caught the ball.

He was too close to the rope but he took a step and then released a ball just the moment he was about to cross the rope. The best thing about the catch was the time he took for the recovery to take the catch again. As he held onto the catch, the entire stadium started celebrating and Smith looked at the catch with utter surprise.

But that was not the end of the whole drama just unfolded in Nottingham. Smith walked out of the crease with a section of crowd applauding him while others, as usual, booing him to the limit.