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***Official*** Australia in India 2017

Tangles

Tangles

International Vice-Captain
Gob said:
Pretty ****ing important if you ask me. His whole game is based on his ability flick that straight ball on the off/middle peg through mid wicket. That's the bed rock of his game and if he starts to miss that and fall over ala late career Ponting, shits gona get ****ed up for Steven.

Thankfully this whole scenario is still good five years away so when the time comes he'll probably have 10k runs, 40 tons and an average of 69. Although that won't stop Blocky from saying ' I told you so'
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Even if his form degrades once his eye goes how many runs will he have by then? If he keeps this up till he's 35/6 then that's going to be amazing to watch.
 
Compton

Compton

International Debutant
Smith should definitely have his eyes on some of Punter's records. Wouldn't surprise me if he caught some of Sachin's too..
 
S.Kennedy

S.Kennedy

International Vice-Captain
I guess I just wanted a great test series and do not want that spoiled by negativity and nitpicking about wickets, considering all the dross over the winter. I basically ignored the whole Kohli v Smith DRS bollocks as I did not want it to interfere with my enjoyment of the series. I just glanced over the initial story and did not follow it through.
 
Burgey

Burgey

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Yeah it's been a great series. Kohli has done his best to make it great by being woeful with the bat and to make it awful by his ****ish antics, but he's rightly on ignore now that the series has come down to the wire and the real cricketers are sorting it out.
 
Zinzan

Zinzan

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honestbharani said:
Yeah but even ATG batsmen have such veins of form right? Hopefully for the other teams' around the world sake, he comes down to regular ATG level coz at the moment, he is definitely in peak Sachin/Ponting levels amongst the batsmen I have seen.
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I might be wrong but Tendulkar never averaged 70+ for 4 years consecutively did he? I'm not even sure Ponting did either, although he might have gone close circa 2003-2006

Smith's creating his own new standards here. Take away those couple of years he was a bowling all-rounder batting down the order, and his stats are even more absurd.
 
Burgey

Burgey

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Zinzan said:
I might be wrong but Tendulkar never averaged 70+ for 4 years consecutively did he? I'm not even sure Ponting did either, although he might have gone close circa 2003-2006

Smith's creating his own new standards here. Take away those couple of years he was a bowling all-rounder batting down the order, and his stats are even more absurd.
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Ponting' s peak 52 test streak averaged 75, but I'm not sure what timeframe that was. He averaged 60 odd after 100 tests too. Smdh
 
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Compton

Compton

International Debutant
Having a look now, struggling to find anyone with a streak of 70+ averages.

Sachin and Ponting only ever strung together years averaging 60+ with the occasional 70+ (and often more) happening as a one-off.
 
Zinzan

Zinzan

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Burgey said:
Ponting' s peak 52 test streak averaged 75, but I'm not sure what timeframe that was. He averaged 60 odd after 100 tests too. Smdh
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Just checked & Ponting never had 4 consecutive years averaging over 70 either, that amazing 50 test period was mainly off the back of an amazing 2003 (averaged 100) and 2006 (averaged 88), but even he didn't have Smith's consistency of the last 4 years.
 
FaaipDeOiad

FaaipDeOiad

Hall of Fame Member
Zinzan said:
I might be wrong but Tendulkar never averaged 70+ for 4 years consecutively did he? I'm not even sure Ponting did either, although he might have gone close circa 2003-2006

Smith's creating his own new standards here. Take away those couple of years he was a bowling all-rounder batting down the order, and his stats are even more absurd.
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Zinzan said:
Just checked & Ponting never had 4 consecutive years averaging over 70 either, that amazing 50 test period was mainly off the back of an amazing 2003 (averaged 100) and 2006 (averaged 88), but even he didn't have Smith's consistency of the last 4 years.
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Yeah, consistency is the main difference. Maybe not 4 years, but a long period of averaging 70+ is kinda rare but most of the real purple patch players like your Sobers, Ponting, Sangakkara types have done it.

Ponting's best period was 2002-2006, so 5 years, where he played 57 tests for 6141 runs @ 72.25 with 24 100s.

Smith's run since the start of 2014 is 38 tests, 4264 @ 74.81 with 18 100s.

Ponting's was over a longer period, he had some injuries in there and a quiet 2004, but the thing that really stands out about Smith is his consistency. He hasn't had a series with an average under 40 since the 2013 Ashes, so basically since he was an in and out of the side player who hadn't scored a test century. He averages over 40 against every opposition and in every country, and he's scored a century against every team he's played against, and he hasn't missed a test. He's played basically everywhere in that time too. Ponting had 5 series just in that 2002-2006 period where he averaged under 40, and lots more in his career. Admittedly setting the bar at 40 here is a bit Smith-friendly, if you set it at 50 you don't add any more "quiet" Ponting series and Smith has had quite a few in that category, which makes sense given their overall records are similar. But generally speaking I think Ponting was a bit more prolific and had more series on the level of say Smith's home series against India a few years ago where he just scored a century every time he batted, but Smith very rarely has a quiet stretch. If you play against him he's basically guaranteed to make runs. The same basic comparison holds for most other batsmen who had dominant eras in their careers I think - there's a number of players who have done about as well as Smith has the last few years, but most of them had some weaknesses they made up for by really cashing in against certain opposition or in certain series.
 
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Burgey

Burgey

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Even though he's out of this test, Kohli is still paying $1.05 on Sportsbet to grab a stump at the end of the game.
 
FaaipDeOiad

FaaipDeOiad

Hall of Fame Member
TheJediBrah said:
Be unusual if these were both true wouldn't it? Anyway 5 years of 70+ is more impressive than 4 years of 70+ regardless
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I guess it depends how you interpret the meaning of the first statement, but to me it makes sense, it just requires one lean year. For Ponting it's:

2002: 1064 @ 70.93, 5 centuries
2003: 1503 @ 100.20, 6 centuries
2004: 697 @ 41.00, 0 centuries
2005: 1544 @ 67.13, 6 centuries
2006: 1333 @ 88.87, 7 centuries

So he just had a weaker 2004, which included two subcontinent tours and an injury. Still averaged over 70 across the period, started the run with a test average of 43.78 and finished it at 59.38.

Overall I think there's an argument that Smith's run is more impressive because it really has no low points or weaknesses, but it's also over a shorter period so there's plenty of room for debate there. He could have a terrible year next up and Ponting's run would clearly look superior.

edit: Another small consideration is that Smith is younger. Ponting had just turned 27 at the start of that run with six years of test cricket behind him and finished it at 32, at which point he clearly started to decline a bit as a batsman, though he did make another 4000 or so test runs. Smith was 24 at the start of 2014, and they made their test debut at about the same age.
 
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