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Steve Smith’s current batting legacy is close to unparalleled: his test average of 60.90 is the highest of anyone to play more than 52 matches, he is the fastest batter to both 7,000 and 8,000 Test runs, and the ICC’s algorithms have him second only to Bradman on their all-time red ball batting rankings.
Yet despite those undeniably legendary numbers, it’s impossible not to wonder what Steve Smith could’ve achieved if it weren’t for his career impediments – how dizzyingly high could that batting average have been?
By the next Australian summer, Steve Smith will be 34.
Even if he has the capacity and the desire to play every possible test until his 37th birthday, he’ll end his career having played roughly 120 times in whites for his country.
To put that figure in context, Joe Root has already played 127 Tests at age 32; fellow all-time greats Tendulkar and Ponting retired after a comparatively whopping 200 and 168 appearances in the longest format respectively.
Someone of his generational talent should have played far more red ball matches than Smith ever will.
The first major blow to his career was the year long international ban imposed on him by Cricket Australia for his role in the infamous Newlands scandal of 2018, having originally been given a one match sanction by the ICC.
Regardless of your opinions on the suspension, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy when you consider that it fell right between the two most dominant periods of his career: Smith had reached a career high ICC rating earlier that year, and his indomitable, near invincible comeback performance in the 2019 Ashes will go down in cricketing folklore.
Who knows how many runs Smith would’ve plundered had he been able to don the baggy green for the nine Tests he was forced to miss.
To compound 12 months of wasted potential post sandpapergate, from October 2019 till March 2022 Australia played a paltry 14 Tests due to a hapless mix of Covid, a white ball dominated home calendar and a bizarre reticence to schedule a single red ball away series.
Steve Smith of Australia celebrates after reaching his century during day three of the First Test Match of the 2017/18 Ashes Series between Australia and England at The Gabba on November 25, 2017 in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
In the same time interval, England played 29. What makes those numbers even more criminal in Smith’s case is that they overlapped with the statistically proven peak years of a batter’s career, from age 30 to 32.
Australia’s number 4 didn’t just miss out on a significant chunk of matches, he was robbed of the chance to make hay during what should’ve been his golden years.
Whatever statistics he leaves behind when he retires will never be able to encapsulate the man’s genius; Steve Smith will go down as a cricketer of stratospheric brilliance who didn’t have the chance to truly fulfil it.
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