Steven Smith and the technique nobody could coach
A leg-spinner who batted at number eight became the outstanding Test batter of his generation, with a method built on fidgeting feet and an eye that never seemed to blink. A ball-tampering scandal cost him the Australian captaincy at its peak; the batting never stopped.
A leg-spinner who could bat
Steven Smith was picked for New South Wales, and then for Australia, as a leg-spinning all-rounder who could bat a bit down the order. He made his Test debut against Pakistan at Lord's in 2010, scoring 1 and 12 and taking 3 wickets, a start that gave no hint of what was coming. For the first few years of his career he batted anywhere from six to nine, in and out of the side, valued more for his bowling and his fielding than for anything with the bat. Nobody watching those early Tests, including most of the Australian selectors, expected he would finish as the most run-hungry batter of his era.
The turning point was not a single innings but a change of role. Australia's middle order was reshuffled after a difficult 2013 Ashes tour, and Smith was moved up to number four, first as a stop-gap and then, once the runs started, as a fixture.
The move to number four
Once settled at four, where he batted in 107 of his 195 innings in the CricArcade archive, Smith turned into the most reliable run-scorer of his generation. The technique that carried him there looked unlike any textbook: an exaggerated shuffle across the crease before the ball was bowled, a bat that pointed towards gully rather than the bowler, hands and feet in constant, restless motion. Coaches would not have taught it to a junior player, but it worked because Smith's hand-eye coordination let him adjust late, whatever the ball did off the pitch.
By the mid-2010s he was Australia's premier batter and, from 2015, its captain. He led the side in 38 Tests in the archive, winning 21 and losing 10, a captaincy record built on the same relentless scoring that defined him as a player.
The Perth double
The highest score of Smith's career in the archive, 239 from 399 balls, came against England at the WACA Ground in Perth during the 2017-18 Ashes, a match Australia won by an innings and 41 runs after England won the toss and chose to bat first. It sits alongside four other scores past 190 among his best five innings: 215 against England at Lord's in 2015, 211 against England at Old Trafford in 2019, 200 not out against West Indies at Perth Stadium in 2022, and 199 against West Indies at Sabina Park in 2015. Four of those five came against England, the opponent against whom Smith scored more than any other: 3,417 runs at 56.02 in 37 Tests, with 12 hundreds and 13 fifties.
He was, statistically, at his best in the middle of his career. The 2010s were his most productive decade in the archive by a distance: 7,164 runs at 62.84 from 72 Tests, with 26 hundreds.
Cape Town
In March 2018, during the third Test against South Africa at Newlands, television cameras caught the Australian fielder Cameron Bancroft rubbing sandpaper on the ball, an attempt to alter its condition illegally. Smith, as captain, admitted afterwards that the plan had been discussed by the team's leadership group. Cricket Australia banned Smith and his vice-captain David Warner for twelve months and barred Smith from any leadership role for a further period after that. He stood down as captain immediately, and the fallout, in Australia and around the cricket world, was the most damaging scandal in the country's modern cricket history.
Smith did not play international cricket again until the year's ban had elapsed. When he returned, in 2019, he returned only as a batter, the captaincy passed on to others, and what he did with the bat over the following years suggested the suspension had cost him nothing technically, whatever else it had cost.
The comeback Ashes
Smith's first Test back was the 2019 Ashes in England. He scored heavily throughout that series, and his 211 at Old Trafford in the fourth Test, part of his best-five list above, came in a series where Australia retained the urn in England for the first time in eighteen years. The reception he received from English crowds, a mixture of jeers and grudging respect, became one of the recurring storylines of that tour: barracked relentlessly every time he walked out, and just as relentlessly making runs regardless.
It was, by any measure, one of the most complete comebacks in the sport, an eighteen-month gap in his career bridged as though it had barely happened. The captaincy never returned to him in the same way, and Pat Cummins and Tim Paine led the side either side of the ban, but Smith's place as Australia's senior batter was never seriously in question again.
How he batted
Smith's bowling, the reason he was first picked, never disappeared entirely: the archive credits him with 19 wickets at 53.05, including a best of 3 for 18 against England at Lord's in 2013 and 3 for 51 on his Test debut against Pakistan at the same ground. It became a minor part of his game rather than a central one as the batting took over, a legspinner's googly occasionally rolled out in a long partnership rather than a genuine attacking option.
As a batter, Smith was almost as effective away from home as in it: an average of 62.68 in 53 Tests in Australia against 53.59 in 51 Tests abroad, a smaller gap than most specialist batters carry between home comfort and touring conditions. The Melbourne Cricket Ground was his most productive venue in the archive, 11 Tests for 1,093 runs at 78.07, ahead of the Sydney Cricket Ground on 70.60.
The numbers
The CricArcade archive, built from scorecards to 30 March 2024, records 109 Tests for Smith, 195 innings, 9,685 runs at 56.97, with 32 hundreds and 41 fifties, the last match in the archive coming against New Zealand at Hagley Oval. Australia won 60 of the 109 Tests he played, lost 33 and drew 16. Smith's career continued past that date, and the page's own header carries his fuller, separately sourced figures as of when this site was last updated: 123 Tests and 10,763 runs at 56.05. The two sets of numbers are close because his output after March 2024 kept pace with everything before it, but they are drawn from different sources and are kept apart here for that reason.
Sources
- CricArcade player page: full career record, best innings and scorecard links
- ESPNcricinfo: Steven Smith player profile and Test career statistics
- Wisden Cricketers' Almanack: reports on the 2017-18 and 2019 Ashes series
- Wikipedia: Steve Smith (cricketer)