The Smith Way: Beautiful Ugly

Tim Wigmore takes a forensic look at a run scoring phenomenon who is beginning to rival the greatest of all, Bradman

- Tim Wigmore

How good is Steve Smith? According to the International Cricket Council’so official rankings, only Donald Bradman has ever batted better than Smith today.

Ricky Ponting, Allan Border, Greg Chappell and Victor Trumper in Australia; Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Virat Kohli and Viv Richards outside it. Smith has left them all behind.

He is now the owner of the second highest Test average – 62.32 – of all time, second only to Don Bradman. Smith scores a hundred every 2.7 Test matches, a figure bettered only by Bradman among those with 20 centuries. For good measure, Smith has also scored more runs than anyone else in the history of the game after the same number of Test innings.

The record of the real Smith – as distinct from that imposter who came into the 2010/11 Ashes declaring that his role was about “having fun and making sure everyone else around is having fun, whether it be telling a joke or something like that” – is even more astounding.

Ever since the 2013 Perth Test against England – when his magnificent hundred helped Australia recover from 143-5 – Smith averages 73.10 in 45 Tests, which include 21 of his 22 Test hundreds. With every century, so the comparisons with Bradman become a little more inevitable.