Steve Smith

Steve Smith (cricketer)

Steven Smith (born 2 June 1989) is an Australian international cricketer, and currently the captain of the Australia national cricket team across all three formats.

Smith was born in Sydney to an Australian father, Peter, who has a degree in chemistry and works with pigments and waxes and an English mother, Gillian. He was educated at Menai High School, but at the age of 17 he dropped out of the Higher School Certificate (HSC) to play cricket in England

As of December 2017, Smith is the top-ranked Test batsman in the world, according to the ICC Player Rankings.Smith was the leading run scorer in 2014–15 Border-Gavaskar Trophy series against India. In 2015, he won the Allan Border Medal for the best player in Australian Cricket. In June 2015, he was moved up to the coveted number 3 spot in the Test batting order for the series against the West Indies and the 2015 Ashes series, a position previously held by Ricky Ponting. After taking over full-time captaincy of the national team, Smith has batted predominantly at number 4, with the number 3 position generally occupied by Usman Khawaja. Though Smith covered for him again in the inaugural day-night Test match in Adelaide, he moved back to the number 4 spot in the batting order, following Khawaja's return from injury.

Ashes series 2017-18

In the first test at Brisbane, Smith scored the first century of the series, 141 not out, which incidentally was his 21st Test century in his 105th innings - he is the third quickest to score 21 test centuries- behind Donald Bradman and Sunil Gavaskar. On 16 December 2017 Smith scored 239 on the final Ashes match at WACA Ground. He was quick to score his 22nd century at the WACA, before he converted that into a career-best 239. It was his second double-hundred and his first as captain. In the fourth Ashes test at Melbourne, Smith continued his prodigious form when he scored 76 in the first innings before he was bowled by England debutant Tom Curran, providing him with his first wicket in test cricket. A series best 244* by England's Alastair Cook then placed Australia in a tense situation that saw them trail by 164 at the end of start of the fourth day. Coming in at 2/65 before lunch on a rain affected day four, Smith batted until the closure of play on day five and scored yet another century, finishing with a defiant 102* from 275 deliveries to guide Australia to a draw and to deny England's first victory in Australia since 2011. Smith concluded the 2017 calendar year with six centuries and three fifties along with an average of 76.76 and a total of 1305 runs, the highest of any player that year. During the final Ashes match in Sydney, Smith reached the milestone of 6000 Test runs in 111 innings, becoming the equal second-fastest player (in terms of innings), and also the youngest Australian, ever to do so.

He has garnered praises from opponent captain Joe Root for leading the team from the front and being the sole difference between the two teams during 2017-18 Ashes series.