Robert Craddock: If Don Bradman is Everest, Steve Smith is K2

There will never be another Don Bradman, but in his unorthodox approach and the way he consistently frustrates the plans of opposition bowling attacks, Steve Smith is uncannily similar to the master.

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The great cricketers of the Don Bradman era are almost gone now but one of them left us with a memory that links Bradman to modern genius Steve Smith.

Nineteen years ago I asked Bradman’s three-time Ashes squadmate and close friend Bill Brown to define the impact of a Bradman innings and the choreography that would unfold around it.

“Don was not an orthodox batsman,’’ Brown said.

“His body sort of took shape around the shot he wanted to play. His innings would often start without haste. He would look around the field and liked to start with a nibble just in front of square leg for a single, and he would run that first single for dear life. It often wasn’t as if he always tore an attack apart. (Like Smith) he rarely hit the ball in the air.

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Steve Smith celebrates bringing up his double century on day two of the fourth Ashes Test. Picture: Getty Images

“It was often more mechanical rather than a work of art. You could tell in England by the time he got 20, 30 or 40, the crowd knew it was a matter of how many. Rival bowlers would spark up for a while, then lose their spark. He’d score 200 on wickets on which others were struggling.

“His bat just seemed wider. Game plans came and went. Bowl wide and starve him. Full and straight and pack the leg-side field. Every game plan seemed so obvious. I once set a field to him in a Sheffield Shield game and he came up and said ‘I know what you are thinking and it won’t work’. And it didn’t.’’

Many of these quotes could now apply to Smith, neatly described by commentator Isa Guha as an “out of this world batsman, batting in a world of his own’’.

You can’t compare anyone with Bradman because the Don just wins. Smith would have to score 4705 in his next innings and not get out to catch Bradman’s Test average.

But Smith’s stunning impact in the Ashes is Bradmanesque.

Don Bradman spent his career frustrating bowling attacks. Picture: Getty Images

With a Test average of just under 65, he now sits alone in that vast, traditionally empty space between Bradman and the swarm of truly exceptional batsmen who average just over 50.

Bradman is Mt Everest, the undisputed highest mountain. Smith is now K2, the second highest peak.

Despite giving his rivals eight months start, he is the highest Test runscorer of the year from all nations. Extraordinary.

It’s amazing how truly great batsmen change the landscape around them.

We go on and on about some batsmen being unlucky and getting a good ball, or a rotten slice of luck, yet Smith is so good he just takes luck out of the equation.

With eight consecutive Ashes scores above 50, he is a batting bulldozer who crushes potential pieces of bad luck like twigs in his path.

Smith’s exploits with the bat this Ashes series have been incredible. Picture: AFP

The Ashes appear set to stay in Australia but Smith has set a challenge for historians when they have the final word on it.

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The temptation is for them to start their summaries with the line “the series was played on some challenging wickets ...’’, and they might point to the fact that halfway through the fourth Test Australia’s average opening stand was eight.

A large group of batsmen from both teams have had nightmares, but how do you reconcile it with the fact that Smith looks as if he is batting on a ballroom dancefloor every innings with 589 runs at 147.

And he has missed three innings in the series ... and has potentially three more to go.

Amazing.