It is barely a week before the most heated cricket rivalry resumes, with the first Test at Brisbane’s Gabba.
The 2017-18 Ashes will see the first time that both captains, host Steven Smith and his visitor Joe Root, will lead their respective sides in an Ashes Test.
Being two of the most dreaded modern-day quartet of batsmen – Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson, both captains themselves, being the others – it is a cricket writer’s delight to compare all four greats in the longest format.
Overall Test record
With all of the four having played at least 56 and at most 61 Tests until date, the competition gets hotter. While all of Smith, Root and Williamson have raked up in excess of 5,000 runs at an average exceeding 50, India’s skipper Kohli, being the only one to average under 50, remains well shy of that many runs.
In terms of overall averages, Smith, by far, leads the pack with a staggering 59.67, followed by Root, Williamson and Kohli, respectively.
Smith also remains ahead in terms of Test hundreds – he has 20 of them while Kohli and Williamson have 17 each – as his Ashes opposite number Root is some way behind at 13, though the latter boasts of the most number of fifties and also the highest score among the four – the only one to have crossed 250.
(AFP PHOTO / GREG WOOD)
Matches Innings Runs Average Hundreds Fifties Highest Score
Steven Smith 56 104 5,370 59.67 20 21 215
Joe Root 60 110 5,323 53.77 13 32 254
Virat Kohli 60 101 4,658 49.55 17 14 235
Kane Williamson 61 110 5,116 51.16 17 25 242*
Home record
Expectedly, they are all masters in their own den. In this regard – yet again – Smith has an unmatchable average of 68.66, more than ten steps ahead of the next best, which is Root’s 58.07.
With a conversion rate better than the other three – he has ten home hundreds to eight half-centuries – Smith has scored more runs than Kohli and Williamson despite batting four and two times fewer, respectively. Having played the fewest innings – 43 – his ten hundreds remain one more than Root’s, who has batted in a whopping 17 innings more.
Surprisingly, though, Smith remains the odd one out in one matter – he is yet to register a double hundred on home soil. With all of Smith, Kohli and Williamson playing at home in the coming days – India host Sri Lanka for three Tests while West Indies travel to New Zealand for two games – they will be desperate to improve their figures at home. Root will attempt to do the same in the English summer of 2018 where England play a combined seven Tests against Pakistan and India.
Matches Innings Runs Average Hundreds Fifties Highest Score
Steven Smith 24 43 2,403 68.66 10 8 192
Joe Root 34 60 3,136 58.07 9 16 254
Virat Kohli 29 47 2,311 55.02 7 9 235
Kane Williamson 26 45 2,256 57.85 7 13 242*
Away record
The most challenging aspect of playing cricket remains an acclimitisation to alien conditions – fast, bouncy tracks for one while slow, low turners for others – and all four captains have shown the way in this regard with an authority in their own respective ways.
All of Smith, Kohli and Williamson have ten centuries each on the opposition’s soil, as Root, with 16 fifties, is ahead on that list. Though Smith has batted 61 times away from home – a few times more than Root and Kohli – he sits at the top of the tree by averaging a fantastic 53 with a highest score of 215.
Kohli, however, has an astonishing conversion rate each time he crosses fifty away from home – out of the 15 occasions that he has done that, he has gone on to make ten centuries. And as the Ashes campaign begins, Root will do his best to tick the box of getting a double hundred away from home – like Williamson, he is yet to do that.
Matches Innings Runs Average Hundreds Fifties Highest Score
Steven Smith 32 61 2,967 53.95 10 13 215
Joe Root 26 50 2,187 48.60 4 16 182*
Virat Kohli 31 54 2,347 45.13 10 5 200
Kane Williamson 35 65 2,860 46.13 10 12 192
(AFP PHOTO / MARTY MELVILLE
As captain
With responsibility, comes more runs. Not a single one out of the quartet of Smith, Root, Kohli and Williamson averages less than 59 as captain.
Though England are only seven Tests old with their new captain, Root already averages in excess of 60 with two hundreds against his name. Smith, with 12 tons, and Kohli, with ten – he got two in his very first Test as captain at Adelaide in 2014 – have played most times as captains, with Smith’s average swelling to 69 when he assumes charge of the side.
Williamson boasts of four centuries and six half-centuries in only 13 Tests, as only Kohli among the four has achieved a double century as the skipper – in fact, he has four of them, all in consecutive series.
Matches Innings Runs Average Hundreds Fifties Highest Score
Steven Smith 26 47 2,830 69.02 12 10 192
Joe Root 7 12 729 60.75 2 5 190
Virat Kohli 29 46 2,560 59.53 10 4 235
Kane Williamson 13 21 1,079 59.94 4 6 176
Difference between home-and-away averages
Whereas a high difference in this regard would indicate a contrast in performances at home-and-away from it, the lower that this figure gets, the more similar is the display in either place.
This is where Root trumps his competitors with a margin of 9.47, and is followed by Kohli, whose figure is 9.89. Williamson is next with 11.72, as Smith lags behind with 14.71. However, though the difference remains the highest for Smith, so do his averages at both home-and-away in comparison to the other three.
The only one to average over 60 and over 50 at home-and-away from it, respectively, Smith beats them all comfortably, with Kohli falling behind in both categories, followed by Williamson and Root.
Average at home Average away Difference
Steven Smith 68.66 53.95 14.71
Joe Root 58.07 48.60 9.47
Virat Kohli 55.02 45.13 9.89
Kane Williamson 57.85 46.13 11.72
Conversion rate
Great batsmen have mastered the art of converting fifties into triple-figures more often than not – among modern retired greats, all of Michael Clarke, Matthew Hayden and Younis Khan finished with more hundreds than fifties – something which is a token of greater concentration and big run scoring.
A conversion rate – calculated by dividing the number of hundreds by the aggregate number of times one crossed fifty – exactly equal to 0.50 would reveal that fifties and hundreds were both equal, whereas one over 0.50 would be pointing out more of the latter than the former.
Kohli is clearly edging past all of his rivals with a conversion rate of 0.55 – he has 17 Test centuries to 14 half-centuries – as his Australian counterpart Smith comes close with 0.49 – 20 hundreds to 21 fifties.
As Williamson follows with a rate of 0.40 – 17 tons and 25 fifties – Root is massively behind the pack with a measly figure of 0.29. Of the 45 times that he has crossed fifty, only on 13 occasion has he touched three figures, something which he would race to improve in the 2017-18 Ashes.
Number of times crossed 50 Number of hundreds Conversion Rate
Steven Smith 41 20 0.49
Joe Root 45 13 0.29
Virat Kohli 31 17 0.55
Kane Williamson 42 17 0.40
*This article was written before the commencement of the Kolkata Test between India and Sri Lanka on 16th November, 2017.
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