Skip to main content

Quick singles: The incredible Mr. Smith

While not quite being an extraterrestrial computer, bowlers around the world will want to claim that Steve Smith is not quite human the way he's gone about his run scoring in the last four years since he made his comeback to the Australian Test side. Over 48 matches (and 88 innings) he has averaged 64.85 with 19 hundreds and another 18 fifty plus scores. And (unlike some modern "greats") he's scored these runs everywhere he's played as an away (incl UAE) average of 58.22 and hundreds in every country except the UAE show. Along the way he has become the fastest to 5000 runs among his contemporaries (unless Pujara or du Plessis achieve the possible but highly unlikely feats of scoring 1259/2642 runs in their next 18/36 innings respectively). He's also got comfortably the second highest average ever of batsmen with more than 5000 runs, ahead of the likes of Sobers, Hobbs, and Hammond. And as captain, he's miles ahead of anyone (bar Bradman of course) who has scored more than 2000 runs as skipper. Not bad for a man who made his debut as a leg-spinning allrounder batting at #8.

What give me additional personal pleasure is that three years back, I picked him as one of my stars for the future (and as future Aussie skipper). Given that he averaged just 38.45 at that stage with four hundreds after 18 matches, that was a pretty good pick!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Et tu?

As a single sport website, I think Cricinfo has brought about a revolution and the fact that they were bought by ESPN is testament to how highly valued they've become. Their editing and approach to articles/opinion has been refreshing to say the least and even though they seem to have had a lot of editorial staff movement they've usually maintained very high standards. Off late though, both in their headline styles as well as in actual content, there seems to be an occasional slippage of standards and an inching towards the modern media sensationalism which is a bit of a pity. This piece  by Siddharth Monga is a classic example. Granted that the last two press conferences by Dhoni and Sehwag  indicated clearly that the captain and his deputy did not agree on this aspect of selection but "discord", "dissent", "public sniping" feels rather presumptuous and heavy handed. Yes, it is a team sport but there is no reason why everyone on the team needs ...
1 comment
Read more

An Asian Test summer

Little that's happened in the cricketing world recently has given me as much pleasure as Pakistan's ascent to the #1 ranking in Tests . Though it finally happened in slightly farcical circumstances with the outfield fiasco in Port-of-Spain, it couldn't have come at a better time for the country, and more importantly Misbah-ul-Haq deserved it for the sterling job he's done in the last five years. Sportspersons are constantly challenged in having to live out of hotel rooms and away from friends and family for long periods of time. And for this Pakistan team, the burden has been manifold given the inability to play even their own domestic T20 league at home, let alone international cricket. Not for a month, or a year but for nearly seven years now. That needs a huge degree of mental toughness especially for the younger players, not to say adjusting to non-home conditions. Coupled with that toughness, the other quality that this team has displayed unlike some of their pr...
Post a Comment
Read more