Smith could better Bradman, but can he catch him?

If Steve Smith gets another 18 runs in the fourth Test against India, an old and mighty record will fall like an ancient oak.

In the distant summer of 1947-48, a moderate cricketing talent by the name of Donald Bradman collected 715 runs for Australia in a series against India, setting what has since been an insuperable mark between the two nations.

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Ricky Ponting came closest to topping it with his two big double-centuries in 2003-04, but sputtered out at 706. Rahul Dravid in the same series wasn’t too far behind on 619. Michael Clarke’s devastation of India in 2011-12 netted him 626, his triple-hundred taking him over halfway there.

But for all those efforts it’s now Smith, with an innings up his sleeve, who sits on 698 with a shot at the summit.

A glance might indicate that Bradman had an unfair advantage, with five Tests at his disposal rather than four to Smith and Ponting. But in fact the weather and the era’s pitches limited Bradman to six innings. Ponting took his full eight, and Smith will need the same to overrun the mark.

That difference is the card that Bradman keeps up his sleeve, the distinction lurking somewhere in every batch of figures that illustrates his separation from even the uppermost rank of cricketing mortals.

Innings aside, two sets of numbers bear a pleasing symmetry. Bradman: four centuries, one fifty, two not outs, average of 179, high score of 201. Smith: four centuries, one fifty, two not outs, average of 140, high score of 192. Both were once in the series dismissed by a bowler for less than a century. Both have been swift in scoring and undismissable, melding joyousness and ruthlessness in equal alloy.

For Bradman it was his only series against India, the gap in the great man’s resumé being how he would have fared on subcontinental turners. It was also the series that gave us the Mankad, after Mulvantrai ‘Vinoo’ Mankad ran out Bill Brown backing up too far at the non-striker’s end. He’d already run out Brown the same way in a tour match after giving him several warnings, and press complaints of unfairness were dismissed by Bradman himself.

The Australian captain kicked things off in Brisbane, scoring most of his eventual 185 before two days of rain. Following the delay, Bradman broke his own stumps attempting a cut shot and declared soon afterwards, before twice rolling India for less than a hundred on the storm-ruined pitch.

In Sydney he had his only failure, bowled for 13 on another pitch damaged by weather. India in their second innings scrapped to a lead of 142 after capsizing Australia for 107, but the chance of fourth-innings Bradman heroics on a sticky wicket were washed out by rain.

So to Melbourne, where Bradman followed 132 in the first innings with 127 not out in the second, declaring to set India 359. Mankad had made a ton in India’s first dig, but the chase fell away in 25 overs.

In Adelaide, Bradman made 201 as Australia totalled 674. Not for him the weakness of resting one’s bowlers: after 109 eight-ball overs to dismiss India for 381, he enforced the follow-on and had his men bowl another 92. Don’t worry, he bowled one himself. Vijay Hazare made back-to-back centuries but India still lost by an innings.

With the final Test back at the MCG, an anticlimax saw Bradman retire hurt with a rib strain for 57, all that run-making having taken its toll. So his series tally came to an end, as Neil Harvey in his second Test scored 153 and India suffered another innings defeat despite a second Mankad century, this time as an opener.

Neither Smith nor Bradman faced an Indian pace attack of any accomplishment. This summer has featured the erratic trio of Mohammed Shami, Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav, the unthreatening Ishant Sharma, the slow and hobbled Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and the unaided spin of Ravi Ashwin and Karn Sharma. None have truly tested Smith.

Bradman faced a less conventional group of bowlers. There was Lala Armanath, who had scored India’s first Test century in 1933 but by this time had morphed into a medium-pace mystery bowler. He would go on to become an Indian cricketing statesman, and father three varyingly famous cricketing sons in Mohinder, Surinder and Rajinder.

There was Mankad, the left-arm spinner and one of the great all-rounders, who would end with 162 wickets from 44 Tests to go with his five centuries, and who did almost every job conceivable for Indian teams during his tenure. The tall medium-pacer Dattu Phadkhar was also fourth on the runs tally that series, his 31-Test career netting 62 wickets and a batting average of 32.34.

Hazare was a batsman foremost, his average topping 47, but seven of his 20 career wickets came in this series, including twice bowling Bradman (the time for 13 proving more useful than the time for 201). There was four-Test fast bowler Commandur Rangachari, and then there was Chandu Sarwate, a forensics expert whose undistinguished nine-Test career belies his incredible first-class achievements.

Sarwate played in the Ranji Trophy from 1936 to 1969, starting in his mid teens and finishing at nearly 50. He played in 11 finals, including runs of four and six consecutively, and won four titles. For his Holkar side he had a batting average of 57.56 and a bowling average of 19.75, with a highest score of 246 and a best innings return of 9 for 61. It’s just that none of that meant much to Bradman.

With most of the Don’s records, it almost feels like a shame when someone breaks them. Often it’s down to volume of cricket: these days, anyone who’s anyone has passed Bradman’s 29 Test centuries. It’s just that if Bradman had played as many games as they had, his ton count would be closer to a hundred.

Smith may not get a chance at the series record – it depends whether Australia need to bat again in this fourth Test, which would require India to muster some hefty first-innings resistance. Smith will either have his chance, or stay just short.

Either could be fitting. You wouldn’t mind the record not falling. But even if he did get there with more innings than the Don, Smith could well deserve the record in his own right.

He was batting at both declarations in Adelaide, once on 162 and once on 52, striking it beautifully both times. He was run out for 28 in Brisbane chasing fast runs for another declaration.

In Melbourne he lost his tail-end partners encouraging them to lash for yet more declaration runs, then was last man out trying outrageous boundary strokes on 192. Without that interference, any of those innings could have delivered another bucket of runs.

So Smith had those maybes, and Bradman had his own retirement with injury and his own undefeated century at a time of declaration. These are the glorious unknowns of cricket that offset all its hard data. Ultimately, the record will either stand or it will fall. But unlike most times someone edges past a Bradman record, this will be about as close as a batsman can get to matching the man for the shortest while.

This article was originally published on Wisden India.