Australia captain Steve Smith moved just 16 points short of the legendary Sir Don Bradman’s highest tally in the latest ICC Test batsmen’s rankings that were announced on Tuesday. Smith slammed a career-best 239 against England in Perth to help his side take an unassailable lead in the Ashes. Australia won the third Test by an innings and 41 runs.
Smith got yo 945 rating points at the end of the Perth Test and has now equalled former England great Sir Len Hutton’s record. During his marathon knock, Smith overtook former Australia captain Ricky Ponting and another Englishman, Sir Jack Hobbs. Bradman, widely regarded as the greatest batsman of all-time, had accumulated a whopping 961 points in the batting charts.
With the Ashes in the bag, Smith has every chance of bridging the gap between him and his compatriot with two more Tests left to play. A total of 114 Tests have been played in the period the 28-year-old has been world No 1, which is the fifth longest. Only Gary Sobers (189 Tests), Viv Richards (179), Brian Lara (140) and India’s Sachin Tendulkar (139) are the ones ahead of him in this list.
India captain Virat Kohli (893), meanwhile, held on to the second spot in the Test batsmen rankings but there some daylight between the two. England captain Joe Root slipped to fifth after a poor showing recently, which meant that India’s Test mainstay Cheteshwar Pujara moved to third. New Zealand captain Kane Williamson also moved up by a spot to lie fifth in the table.