Steven Smith

Steven Peter Devereux Smith (born 2 June 1989) is an Australian international cricketer and former captain of the Australian national team. On 30 December 2017, he reached a Test batting rating of 947, the second-highest of all time, only behind Don Bradman’s 961. He was ranked top Test batsman in the world in 2015, 2016 and 2017, according to the ICC Player Rankings. At various times, Smith has been described as one of the best batsmen in the world and considered the “best since Bradman” due to his high batting average. He played for New South Wales and Sydney Sixers in domestic cricket.

Although he was initially selected for Australia as a right-arm leg spinner, Smith later played primarily as a batsman. After a few matches in 2010 and 2011, he was a regular player in the Australian team after 2013, and took over captaincy from Michael Clarke in late 2015, after which he predominantly batted at number 3 or 4.

Awards he has won include the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy (ICC Cricketer of the Year) in 2015; ICC Test Player of the Year in 2015, 2017; the Allan Border Medal for the best player in Australian Cricket in 2015, 2018; Australian Test Player of the Year: 2015, 2018 and Australian One Day International Player of the Year: 2015. He was named by Wisden as one of their Cricketers of the Year for 2015. In 2014, Martin Crowe described Smith as one of the young Fab Four of Test cricket along with Joe Root, Kane Williamson and Virat Kohli.

In March 2018, Smith was widely criticised for overseeing ball tampering in the third Test against South Africa, during which he stood down from the team captaincy and was replaced by Tim Paine. Following an investigation by Cricket Australia, Smith was banned from all international cricket and domestic cricket in Australia for one year, and will not be considered for a leadership role for another year after that.