Steve Smith made yet another Ashes hundred at Lord’s to re-establish himself among the greatest touring batters to have played Test cricket in England.
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“I started to feel quite groggy – probably like I’d had a dozen beers, to be honest,” confessed Steve Smith on the Legend of the Ashes podcast.
He was speaking about the last time he had batted in a Test match at Lord’s, in 2019, when Jofra Archer had hit him on the head. Smith had to leave, not just the ground but the Test match, and Marnus Labuschagne became Test cricket’s first concussion substitute.
Smith arrived in England that summer – his first tour of England since the Cape Town sandpaper scandal – with a point to prove. After a middling World Cup, the English fans were ready to have a go at the Ashes.
But the boos fizzled out, the sandpapers put away after Smith established his authority with 144 and 142 in the series opener in Edgbaston – a near-continuation after the 143 in his previous Test match in the country, at the Kia Oval in 2015.
At Lord’s, a fourth consecutive hundred seemed inevitable until that blow on 80. He resumed – amidst tumultuous cheer, for the two hundreds had converted even the staunchest English supporters – to add another 12, but the streak had been broken.
Of course, he returned at Old Trafford with 211 and 82, and made another 80 at the Kia Oval. By the time the tour had ended, he had lifted the average from 59.66 to 64.56 – the highest point it’s even been in his remarkable career.
That average dipped to 62.84 before the pandemic, but there was no real threat of it going below 60 yet.
Between lockdown and the ongoing England tour, Smith averaged 48.90 in Test cricket. There was an ordinary Ashes at home (by his standards) and a forgettable tour on the low-scoring pitches of India, but there were also excellent hundreds, against India and South Africa at home as well as in Galle.
For most cricketers, that average would have been excellent, particularly in a bowling-dominant era. For perspective, Virat Kohli averages 48.72 in his entire career. Yet, you could not apply the usual yardsticks to evaluate a man who had breached the 60-average barrier, and had threatened to break down 65.
Smith began the 2023 tour with 121 and 34 in the World Test Championship final against India at the Kia Oval, his third hundred at the venue. Smith joined the small list of touring batters with three hundreds in a single venue in England.
Don Bradman’s four hundreds at Headingley – including two trebles – remain the record, and he also made three at Trent Bridge. Bruce Mitchell, the South African master, made three at the Kia Oval, two of which came in 1947 – twelve years and a World War after the first.
The others on the list are are Gordon Greenidge at Old Trafford – he outscored England in each innings in 1976 – and Dilip Vengsarkar, whose three hundreds at Lord’s came in consecutive Test matches.
After a quiet outing in Edgbaston, Smith returned to Lord’s for unfinished business. He joined Labuschagne, the man who had replaced him four years ago.
Unperturbed by two wickets falling in the same over, Smith left the day unbeaten on 85, saw two more wickets go down in the second morning, and worked his way to a neat, efficient hundred, his 32nd.
The two hundreds in the summer took him past Warren Bardsley, the ubiquitous Bradman, and Mitchell, none of whom toured England after 1950: Smith is now the first touring batter to score five hundreds in London.
In the entirety of England, his eight hundreds are next to only Bradman’s 11.
Of course, one may argue that hundreds, while big scores, need not be representative of reasonably long careers. Over the course of the innings, Smith became the fourth touring batter to score 2,000 runs in England, after Bradman (of course), Allan Border, and Viv Richards.
He made 110, which put him at 2,014 runs in the country – 43 behind Richards’s tally and 68 behind Border’s. It will take something unusual for him to not finish at second spot, behind Bradman’s 2,674 – by the time the tour ends.
Smith’s average of 59.23 is the ninth-best among touring batters with a 1,000-run cut-off – but that records when he was a leg-spin-bowling all-rounder.
If one considers only the tours since 2015, since he adopted the distinctive coaching-manual-defying stance to take the first steps towards greatness, that number shoots up to 74.71. Only one man has done better.
There will, in all probability, be a second innings at Lord’s, and three Test matches after that. Smith had made 508 runs at 56.44 in 2015, and 774 at 110.57 in 2019.
Bradman’s 974 in 1930 – the most runs by a touring batter in an English summer – may be a far cry, but Smith’s season tally stands at 287 runs at 57.40. That 774, his personal best, may not be insurmountable.
