The 'real' Steven Smith question...

[Zinzan]

I'm possibly getting ahead of myself, but humour me & assume the following hypothetical;

Let's assume he's currently half-way through his career, & doubles his number of matches played to another 60 Tests in the next 6-7 years.

Like most ATG bats, he does deteriorate slightly in the 2nd half of his career, by about 10%.

Even a 10% drop-off in his current performance would see him average 56.1 in the 2nd half of his career, which would see his overall career average finish up around 59.2.

If he did achieve this after say 120 matches, and continues to perform against all-comers and all conditions as he has to date, would he be considered the 2nd greatest Test bat after 'The Don'?

I think there'd be a very strong argument to say yes.

Thoughts?

 

[Red]

He's a gun, but I'd still consider him on par with Tendulkar, Lara, V.Richards, G.Chappell and Sobers in that tier below Bradman.

 

[Burgey]

If he played 120-140 odd tests and averaged 60 or so then he’d have to be right up there. It’s hard in my mind to consider someone could be clearly better than the blokes RH mentions in his post, but if it turns out that way I hope I’m around to see it.

 

[Tannhauser]

Hell of a lot of 'ifs' in this. Tendulkar played Test cricket for 24 years and still finished with an average over 54. Smith's being doing it for what, 7 years?

 

[fredfertang]

Maybe the third best - he isn't as good as Barry Richards

 

[Chrish]

Yeah it's far too premature comparison.

Still you can see when you are watching someone special. Ab De Villers was giving me similar feeling a while back like current Smith.

 

[Furball]

Smith is a much better Test batsman than de Villiers ffs.

 

[CM Punk]

If he keeps this up for another 10 years, yes.

 

[Chrish]

Depends which way you look at it. Based on current form yes, but AB has also achieved some miraculous feats; scoring runs everywhere against top class class bowlers. Easy to forget how good and highly regarded he was before the dip in the form.

When we look at the overall career, I doubt any current player is "much better" than AB.

 

[Gob]

Hell of a lot of 'ifs' in this. Tendulkar played Test cricket for 24 years and still finished with an average over 54. Smith's being doing it for what, 7 years?

four

 

[Slifer]

Hell of a lot of 'ifs' in this. Tendulkar played Test cricket for 24 years and still finished with an average over 54. Smith's being doing it for what, 7 years?

Just under 54 actually

 

[Zinzan]

Hell of a lot of 'ifs' in this.

Yeah it's far too premature comparison.

I clearly stated it was a hypothetical question.

 

[Zinzan]

When we look at the overall career, I doubt any current player is "much better" than AB.

If we're talking Tests, Smith is quite obviously better.

 

[Spark]

If in doing so he's integral to series wins (or at least gets us in a position to win) in India, England and South Africa, then absolutely yes. Otherwise nah. He's already ticked off one of those boxes though.

Too much is made of averages, not enough of big series performances (and no, that's not the same thing as "average in a country")

 

[TheJediBrah]

Yeah it's far too premature comparison.

Still you can see when you are watching someone special. Ab De Villers was giving me similar feeling a while back like current Smith.

I don't think you understood the thread

Depends which way you look at it. Based on current form yes, but AB has also achieved some miraculous feats; scoring runs everywhere against top class class bowlers. Easy to forget how good and highly regarded he was before the dip in the form.

When we look at the overall career, I doubt any current player is "much better" than AB.

No, Smith is much better

 

[Chrish]

No, Smith is much better

Why?

 

[Second Spitter]

No. I would consider Adam Voges the second best after the Don.

Maybe Voges was even better than the Don considering we saw very little evidence on how Bradman handled bowling attacks that were not really interested in playing Test cricket.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I'm possibly getting ahead of myself, but humour me & assume the following hypothetical;

Let's assume he's currently half-way through his career, & doubles his number of matches played to another 60 Tests in the next 6-7 years.

Like most ATG bats, he does deteriorate slightly in the 2nd half of his career, by about 10%.

Even a 10% drop-off in his current performance would see him average 56.1 in the 2nd half of his career, which would see his overall career average finish up around 59.2.

If he did achieve this after say 120 matches, and continues to perform against all-comers and all conditions as he has to date, would he be considered the 2nd greatest Test bat after 'The Don'?

I think there'd be a very strong argument to say yes.

Thoughts?

He's already one of the best I've ever seen.

In this hypothetical, if you're asking if his career would be considered an undisputed no.2 on the basis of just those statistics and nothing else, I'd say no. Other players have had similar runs where they averaged approx. 60 over many years. Tendulkar for example had a run of 160 tests over 18 years where he averaged 59.7.

But really its about how and when he gets those runs, the kind of innings he plays etc which will determine where he should eventually be ranked.

 

[TNT]

If he does then Australia would have the top three batsmen, 1 The Don, 2 Smith, 3 Ponting.

 

[TheJediBrah]

If he does then Australia would have the top three batsmen, 1 The Don, 2 Smith, 3 Ponting.

You're forgetting Bradman

He'd probably sit at no. 1 ahead of Voges