Discipline powers Voges' extraordinary run

Bradman and Tendulkar. The Don and the Little Master. The two benchmarks in Test batting history. Generations of Test batsmen have dreamt of having their names mentioned in such company, if only briefly. Usually, it is nothing but a dream. For Adam Voges, though, it is reality. A Kardashian-like reality, perhaps - a fleeting fame that will ultimately fade - but reality nonetheless. At least for today, it's Bradman, Tendulkar and Voges.

And it may only be today. Certainly it will be if Voges is dismissed early on the third morning at the Basin Reserve. His Test average will then dip back below Bradman's 99.94, having risen above 100 in the last few overs of the day. That was one legend toppled. He went to stumps having scored 551 runs since his last dismissal, breaking the record of 497 set by Tendulkar in 2004. The second legend falls.

A batsman is doing well if he ever breaks a record set by either Bradman or Tendulkar in his entire career; Voges squeezed them both into a single day. So, let's give the man his 16 hours of fame, for that is roughly how long he has batted since he was last dismissed in a Test. It was last November, it was in Adelaide, it was with a pink ball. It seems like a lifetime ago.

Voges walked off the Basin Reserve after day two with a Test average of 100.33. He is one innings short of the usual "minimum 20 innings" quoted to avoid skewing statistics, but call it "minimum 19 innings" and he tops the list. Of course, such records are fluid until a batsman retires, but most players never get close regardless. And in all of Test history only Bradman, Herbert Sutcliffe, Neil Harvey and now Voges have ever averaged 100 after they reached 1000 runs.

But these figures tell only what Voges has achieved, not how he has achieved it. And for a glimpse at the how, it is worth considering another statistic. Voges has scored more runs than any other Australian Test batsman this summer, but he has done so without hitting a six. Not a single one. The same cannot be said of any other member of Australia's top six.

That tells you something about his mindset. Cut out the risks. Play along the ground, into the gaps. Don't go too hard at the ball. Voges was one of many Australians who were embarrassed by the team's dismissal for 60 on the first day of the Ashes Test at Trent Bridge last year. But he was the only one who was 35 years old and far from established in the team. When he pushed with hard hands and edged Stuart Broad to fifth slip, it could have been the beginning of the end.

Instead, it was the beginning of a new chapter. As Voges told ABC Grandstand during the Australian summer, that innings led him to rethink his whole approach to Test cricket. "I decided to put all drives away - cover drives, straight drives, all drives," Voges said. "I wasn't going to play one, I was going to be as disciplined as I could be and just fight as long as I could and just make them really have to earn my wicket."

The result was an unbeaten 51 in the second innings of that Test, and 76 in his only innings of the final Test at The Oval. It was enough to retain his place in the side. The drives might be back in his game, but the mentality has remained. He has placed such a high price on his wicket that if it was on Ebay nobody would even bid on it. His concentration is enormous: he has now faced 737 deliveries in Test cricket since he last got out.

He is not flawless. The 20th delivery that he faced in this innings smashed into the top of his off stump as he misjudged a leave to a Doug Bracewell ball that moved in handsomely. He was reprieved by the incorrect no-ball call from umpire Richard Illingworth. But importantly, Voges grabbed his second chance and ran with it - as he had during the Ashes. He joined Adam Gilchrist and David Warner (twice) as the only men to make centuries in three consecutive Test innings for Australia since Bradman retired.

Put yourself in Brendon McCullum's rancid black cap and try to answer this question. Who is the key wicket in this Australian batting line-up? Is it Steven Smith, the captain and No.1 batsman on the ICC's Test rankings? Is it David Warner, the Allan Border Medallist ranked No.5? Is it Usman Khawaja, who now has four consecutive first-innings hundreds? Or is it Voges, who has become harder to get out than a grass-stain on your whites?

With apologies to Joe Burns, who has averaged a thoroughly respectable 41.54 since he returned to the side as an opener at the start of the summer, you could argue there are now four key wickets in Australia's top five. It is a remarkable circumstance given Warner and Smith are the only ones who were in the team a year ago.

No wicket is more valuable, at the moment, than that of Voges, whose last three Test innings are 269*, 106* and an ongoing 176*. They are Bradman-esque numbers, as is his average for the time being.

After stumps Khawaja, who had scored his fourth consecutive first-innings hundred, joked that he had come up with a new nickname for the man with whom he shared a 168-run stand: "I might have to call him Sir Voges."