Steve Smith went to bed after Day 1 of the World Test Championship final against South Africa still trying to work out how he nicked off to part-time spinner Aidan Markram.

In the early hours of Thursday morning (AEST), the Australian batting maestro became the most prolific overseas Test run-scorer at Lord’s in history, passing a century-old record previously held by early 1900s Aussie batter Warren Bardsley.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Australia in dominant position after Day 1 of WTC final.

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With his gritty 66 (112) in tricky batting conditions against a moving Duke ball, Smith reached 591 total runs from 10 innings at the Home of Cricket, passing Bardsley’s 575, which had stood as the record since 1926.

And yet, for all his dominance at the ground, he still managed to cough his wicket up to Markram when in reach of a 37th century.

Asked what he learnt from the innings, Smith was facetiously blunt.

“Don’t nick the part-time off-spinner... down the slope,” he said, putting his head in his hands.

“I’m still trying to fathom how I’ve done that. But yeah, don’t do that.

“And then, nah, I don’t know, just play what’s in front of us.

“It (the pitch) might take a bit more spin as the game wears on, it’s pretty dry.

“The seam might go down as the game goes on as well, potentially.

“I think the bounce is going to be variable throughout the game, as we’ve seen already on Day 1.

“Just play what’s in front of us and hopefully we can get a few early ones in the morning and go through them and have a bit of a lead. That’s the ideal scenario for us right now.”

It was all about the Proteas quick Kagiso Rabada redemption story early in the day, running riot underneath overcast skies in London by taking two wickets in four balls.

Rabada, in his first Test since serving a one-month ban for testing positive to cocaine, removed Usman Khawaja (a 20-ball duck) and Cameron Green (four) in the seventh over.

In his first Test since March 2024, fit-again Green hit his first delivery to the boundary at fine leg in a promising start.

But the 26-year-old was gone just two balls later, edging a Rabada rocket to slips where he was superbly caught by Markram.

Marnus Labuschagne, in his first innings as a Test opener, started brightly to get through until drinks.

But as he often has during the last two years, the under-pressure Queenslander struggled to keep the score ticking over.

Labuschagne got caught between playing a shot and leaving a Marco Jansen delivery, nicking off for 17 from 56 balls.

The 30-year-old, who was once described as having “opening-itis”, won the battle to be Khawaja’s fifth opening partner in 18 months over teenager Sam Konstas.

The spectre of Konstas, one of Australian cricket’s rising stars, will now loom even larger for the upcoming three-Test tour of the West Indies.

Labuschagne’s last Test century came back in July 2023 at Manchester.

Travis Head, who starred with a matchwinning 163 in Australia’s WTC final triumph in 2023, was out on the final ball before lunch after wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne hung on to a screamer.

- With AAP