After Steve Smith’s failures in the third and fourth Ashes Tests, he was derided in many quarters as a “home track bully”. Yet he has a comfortably better record away from home than New Zealand’s Kane Williamson or England’s Joe Root.
Smith has been compared unfavourably with both of those batsmen by many cricket pundits and followers, with the central themes being his poor technique and supposed struggles on anything but Australian pitches.
Consider the Test records of Smith, Root and Williamson away from home:
Smith – 1840 runs at 51
Williamson – 2369 runs at 45
Root – 1042 runs at 45
During and after the Ashes, countless articles were written about Smith’s apparent weakness in difficult conditions. For the sake of balance let’s, then, explore the failures away from home of the prolific pair Williamson and Root.
Root has been exposed in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, the three countries with strong pace attacks, averaging just 23 in his seven Tests in those countries.
Williamson, meanwhile, has a very poor record in the countries most difficult for a visiting Kiwi or Australian batsmen – India, South Africa and England. In those three countries, where runs are hard to come by, Williamson has floundered, averaging just 29 from 11 Tests.
Smith has been far more successful than Williamson in those difficult venues, having averaged 46 from his 17 Tests in India, South Africa and England.
The Australian skipper has averaged 40 or more in every overseas Test environment he has played in, whereas Williamson has averaged 11 in South Africa, 31 in England and 36 in India.
Another fact: Root has scored just one century in 15 Tests away from home, compared to Smith’s five tons from 21 Tests on the road.
In this year’s Ashes, Smith made 508 runs at 56, well clear of England’s top scorer Root. Yet the savage criticism directed at Smith befitted a man who had made, say, 192 runs at 27 (Root’s return in the previous Ashes in Australia).
There can be no argument that Smith faltered when Australia needed him in the decisive third and fourth Tests of the Ashes. It shouldn’t be forgotten, though, that he also made two big first-innings hundreds for the series which drove his side to a pair of wins.
Before he’d even finished making his double ton at Lord’s we were hearing and reading opinions that it was a relatively meaningless innings because of a supposedly disgraceful flat pitch.
Yet England’s batsmen were promptly embarrassed on the same surface, reduced to 4-30 in their first innings before rolling over meekly for 103 in the second innings.
Overall, Smith would have been disappointed with his series and the fact he could not have an impact in the third and fourth Tests. It is a mark of his quality though that he still took home a huge run haul despite not being at his best.
The excessive criticism of Smith was encapsulated in former England player Graeme Swann’s Marks out of Ten for each side following the Ashes.
Swann, remarkably, gave Smith the same score as he handed to Jos Buttler, who had an absolute nightmare series, keeping poorly and averaging 15 with the bat, which saw him dropped from the side.
Largely, it seems, because of his unusual movement across the crease, Smith attracts such irrational criticism. In the end, of course, it is not technique which matters but the runs you score – or else the textbook Shaun Marsh would have challenged Don Bradman’s Test record.
Smith has proved that, regardless of idiosyncracies in his technique, he is a versatile batsman, capable of churning out runs in a variety of different conditions.
He conquered South Africa, averaging 67 last year over three Tests against a supreme Proteas attack of Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander and Morne Morkel.
Twice when the Australian batting collapsed in Asia – during the 4-0 loss in India in 2013 and the 2-0 loss in the UAE last year – he stood firm, enhancing his reputation with his nimble footwork and assured play against spin.
Yet, still, many cricket followers ridicule him as a batsman who relies on comfortable home conditions.
To get a sense of the carping critics Smith is hounded by, read the comments section of this story on his recent announcement as the ICC Cricketer of the Year and Test Cricketer of the Year.
Those of us who have followed Smith’s career closely, rather than just making judgments based on two Ashes Tests, can only smile and shake our heads at the ignorance on display.
This is, after all, a man with a batting average of 57 and a phenomenal 13 hundreds from just 38 Tests.
Sara
Guest
I am a big fan of smith and I want the address of smith i love smith very much.
Ronan O'Connell
Expert
Nope...Smith is the no. 1 ranked batsman in Tests.
Chinmusick
Roar Rookie
The one thing about Smith is that people keep claiming that they have worked him out, that they have identified a weakness, but they haven't. I only ever see him get himself out, no team that I can remember has put sustained pressure on him and found a way to slow him down for any period because he can manipulate the ball in to almost miraculous areas from balls that have no right to be going there. I had the same thought about him being an 'eye' player but someone else made a good point that if you take note of his position at the moment he strikes the ball he is perfectly balance and still. That will always put you in good stead to get the most out of your chances.
Bobbo7
Guest
I agree. Smith is a very good player but I haven't seen him play magic innings to win or save games quite as much as I've seen from Root and particularly Williamson. The stats say he makes truckloads of runs but I have just seen the others do more under game pressure with less help. Also Australian decks are so flat these days I just don't rate bigs runs on them quite the same. That said, Smith is wonderful and it will be interesting to see how they all go.
jamesb
Guest
"in Perth coming in at 3/106, and at Sydney coming in at 3/78. Not great, but hardly emergencies" In the Perth test, Australia lost a couple more wickets to be 5/143. Australia recovered and made 385, with Smith making 111.While in Sydney, Australia were 5/97, and eventually made 326, with Smith getting 115. It's not a matter of what score Smith comes into bat, its a matter of what Australia got itself into trouble before Smith rescued the side.
Gnasher
Guest
One bloody good look later...Smith scored two centuries in that series, in Perth coming in at 3/106, and at Sydney coming in at 3/78. Not great, but hardly emergencies. His other scores were 31,0, 6, 23*, 15, 19 & 7 - coming in at 73, 233, 155, 65, 223, 62 and 72. Root scored two centuries in 2015, from 3/43 (Cardiff) and 2/34 (Nottingham) - he switched from no 5 to no 4 after the third test. His latest appearance at the crease was 2/76 in Birmingham, the others being 73, 29, 42, 51, 46 and 62; Smith's two match-turning centuries in 2012-13 were scored coming out with more runs on the board than any of Root's nine 2015 innings. Earlier in 2015 he had scored 83 and 59 in Antigua from 3/34 and 3/52 and 98 & 84 against NZ from 3/25 and 3/74. His other appearances in those two series were at 164, 38, 18, 238 and 62. He was so disturbed by coming in a 3/238, he got out for 1. Not belittling Smith's performances at all, but it seems obvious that his team relies on him for salvation more often than Australia does on Smith.
Ronan O'Connell
Expert
"The point of this article isn’t actually to talk about who the best player is, but to debunk some myths." Exactly, I think it's incredibly difficult at this stage to say who's better of Smith, Root and Williamson because they're still very early in their careers and have had a different mix of opponents/conditions. In 18 months or so we will have a much clearer picture of where they rank.
Steve
Guest
Wouldn't say he's a home track bully, but certainly a flat track bully. Like Cristiano Ronaldo. If the conditions are good and the opposition not crash hot he's fantastic. Nothing wrong with that, but he'll need to produce when conditions aren't great and the opposition is firing as Clarke, Ponting, Waugh, Border have done previously to be considered a great.
Alex
Guest
"making runs against India means very little recently", didn't Brendo get his triple against India...in NZ.
Don Freo
Guest
Yes, Bobbo. How good would it be to have DRS in footy? Hawthorn would have no premierships and Stevic would be over ruled every time.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
It gets worse when you compare with the England bowlers and see he gave Wood 8 for getting 8 wickets at 39!
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Actually, as bat widths are regulated, everyone has pretty much exactly the same margin for error, the margin from the middle of the bat to the edge.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Chanderpaul had this weird technique throughout his incredibly long career. Katich got well into his mid-30's scoring lots of runs with an unusual technique. The technique has evolved as it has by continually working on ways to score runs. I've seen many average players with classical techniques and many awesome players with unusual techniques. Being textbook doesn't make it good and being unusual doesn't make it bad.
Eski
Guest
Bobbo7 Yes NZ don't get long series with top nations because of how poor they have been in the past that may change with their improvement but that also means they have played weaker nations dramatically more helping Williamson stats If your argument is purely based on Williamson is better because he plays for a worst side then Lara and sangakarra should be permanently in the best world 11 because for majority of their career their sides were dramatically worse than what Williamson has got
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
yes, and Joe Root, England's top scorer of the series, had 2 good tests where he got hundreds and one average test where he did okay, England won those, and in the two tests they lose he did really poorly. The point of this article isn't actually to talk about who the best player is, but to debunk some myths. Root scored 92% of his series runs in the 3 tests England won, and 70% of his runs came in 2 of those tests. So you are slamming Smith for something that you could slam every batsman for in that series. It wasn't a series where anyone did was Smith did last Summer against India and score hundreds in every test.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
I don't think Ronan is meaning that fourth innings runs don't matter. But generally when you want to talk about a batsman scoring runs when it counts the most people will pull out the 1st innings average for that. So having your best average in the fourth innings is quite an unusual stat, but not generally one you'd pick to try and show who the best batsman is.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Plus, Smith's record includes when he was first picked to play for Australia when they were hoping he could be a test legspinner and picked him for that. Take those early tests out and his record is even more phenomenal.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
So funny, Cook gets 7 for averaging 36, Bairstow gets 6.5 for averaging 29, yet Warner only gets 6 for averaging 49, Rogers got 7 for averaging 60, Smith 6 for averaging 56. Rating Buttler higher than Nevill. Giving Starc a 5.5 when he got 18 wickets @ 30, and Hazlewood 3.5 for getting 16b wickets at 25, but giving Wood an 8 for getting 8 wickets at 39. Shows he never lets the facts get in the way of a good story!
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Definitely. It's like where players have a way of playing that just makes everything look easy, then getting criticised for not trying hard enough if they get out. People need to work out the difference between a "good technique" and a "classical, text-book technique". Because you can have players, S.Marsh being a good example, who play every shot almost exactly as it's taken out of a textbook, and yet often struggle early on against the moving ball, a situation where you often have to rely on a good technique to get you through, while other players who've developed unusual techniques managed to use those techniques to counter conditions better, but yet they get hammered for having a "poor" technique.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
He's not the only one who gets to play tests in good batting conditions against poor opposition from time to time to pad his stats. They all get that!