Summary Chris Rogers and Steven Smith both gained coveted places on the Lord's honours board.
LONDON (AFP) - Australia s Chris Rogers and Steven Smith both gained coveted places on the Lord s honours board as they each scored a hundred on the first day of the second Ashes Test against England on Thursday.
Number three Smith, who until twice making 33 in England s 169-run win in the first Test in Cardiff was ranked as the world s number one Test batsman, was first to the landmark despite giving Rogers a 35-run and 70-minute head start .
He brought up three figures after tea with a pulled four off James Anderson, reaching his hundred in 161 balls, including nine fours and a six.
It was Smith s 10th hundred in 30 Tests and sixth in eight matches, although he was dropped on 50 in the slips by Ian Bell.
Left-handed opener Rogers, after nearly five hours at the crease, followed Smith to a century when he drove Anderson down the ground for a 17th four in 209 balls faced.
It was a particularly sweet moment for Rogers as the 37-year-old, who knows the ground well from his time with Lord s-based Middlesex, plans to retire at the end of this series.
This match represented his last chance to score a Test century at the home of cricket after he made scores of 15 and six in the corresponding Ashes clash at Lord s two years ago.
Rogers has now scored eight fifties in nine Test innings but Thursday s effort, his fifth century in 22 matches at this level, was the first one of those scores he had converted into a hundred.
Ashes-holders Australia, looking for their first Test series win in Britain in 14 years, were 254 for one when Rogers completed his century, with the second-wicket duo s unbroken stand then worth 176.
Both Rogers and Smith will now have their names inscribed on the honours board in the visitors dressing room which records all the individual Test hundreds scored by England s opponents at Lord s.
