Watch: Viral image of Steve Smith falling asleep in dressing room during 5th Test of Ashes 2023

On 27 July 2023, the fifth and last Test match of this ongoing Ashes series began at the Oval between England and Australia. The Aussies came to this clash to avoid a loss to win this series while the home team were looking for a win to level the series. However, it was quite an eventful day and among many, an incident regarding Steve Smith was one of those.

An image went viral where Smith was found falling asleep in the dressing room while waiting for his turn to bat. Cricket Australia (CA) also shared the image along with a collage of Marnnus Labuschagne falling asleep at the same venue during the recent World Test Championship (WTC) final against India. They shared it with a caption: “There must be something about those Oval changerooms… #Ashes.”

Here is the shared tweet:

England got bundled out for 283 runs in their first innings of 5th Test

Speaking of the match, the Aussie skipper, Pat Cummins won the toss and opted to bowl first. However, the decision turned out to be effective for the visitors as they bundled out England for 283 runs in 54.4 overs. Only Harry Brook showed some fight as he scored 85 runs off 91 balls, including 11 fours and two sixes. With him, Moeen Ali put in a 111-run partnership for the fourth wicket and steadied the ship as they were in a spot of bother after losing three wickets for just 73 runs. 

For the Aussies, Mitchell Starc took four wickets for 82 runs in 14.4 overs while both Todd Murphy and Josh Hazlewood grabbed two wickets each. Pat Cummins and Mitchell Marsh also grabbed one wicket each. In reply, David Warner failed once again after a great start as he scored 24 runs. But, Usman Khwaja and Labuschagne remained not out as Australia finished day one with a score of 61 runs for one wicket in 25 overs. Still, they are trailing by 222 runs. Chris Woakes took the wickets of Warner.