‘He’s very strange’: Smith has reached 10,000-run milestone. Is he the best of his generation?

Galle: With a flick wide of mid-on from Prabath Jayasuriya in the minutes before lunch on day one, Steve Smith joined Ricky Ponting, Allan Border and Steve Waugh as the four Australians to reach 10,000 Test runs.

“Nice to tick that off,” Smith said matter-of-factly at the lunch break.

He had acknowledged the applause of a big Australian travelling contingent in Galle, and got there with warm words from Ponting, who argued that on numbers alone, Smith deserved to be considered the finest player of his generation.

Steve Smith celebrates scoring run No.10,000.Credit: Getty Images

“Is he the best player of his generation? It’s hard to argue against it,” Seven commentator Ponting said. “Joe Root is the other one now and [Kane] Williamson’s record is outstanding as well. Joe’s last couple of years have elevated him right back up there, I think.

“Five or six years ago when this big four emerged, with [Virat] Kohli being one of those as well, Joe was probably down near the bottom part of that because he hadn’t made the hundreds the other guys had made, but he’s made 19 hundreds in the past four years.

“If you asked an Englishman they’d say Joe Root, if you asked an Aussie they’d say Steve Smith and if you asked a Kiwi they’d say Kane Williamson. So it’s a tough one, but on the numbers themselves it’s pretty hard to argue against what he’s done.”

Smith is the fifth-fastest player to reach the milestone – he did it in 205 innings, putting him behind only Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, Kumar Sangakkara and Ponting.

Smith would clearly have preferred to glide Prasidh Krishna through gully to reach the mark at a packed SCG in early January. For one thing, Ponting, Border and Waugh would all have been present to congratulate him.

But there was something else fitting about Smith getting there in Galle.

In common with the other Australians to score this many runs, Smith has done so by proving himself an all-conditions player. Almost half of his tally has been made overseas at an average comfortably better than 50.

10,000 club: Steve Smith, Ricky Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara and Kumar Sangakkara.Credit: Getty

That puts him in the same class as Ponting (46.40 overseas), Border (56.47) and Waugh (55.5).

“It’s a testimony to the hard work he’s put in,” Border has said of Smith. “He’s not the bloke where you say to your son ‘here’s a technique you’ve got to follow’, but it’s worked for him, and that’s a good sign that you know your game.

“He’s done it so well, because it’s not a technique for everyone. He’s in the top echelon. There’s prettier players, but not many who’ve got that record.

“Averaging 57 or so is in the top echelon ever, if you take one certain bloke [Bradman] out of it and he’s right up there with the very, very best. As far as Australia’s concerned, we’ve had Greg Chappell, Ricky Ponting, Steve Waugh, those sorts of players.

“But now Steve [Smith] ranks equally with that group, no problems whatsoever. I’m a huge fan of [Sachin] Tendulkar and [Brian] Lara – they were phenomenally good cricketers, but Steve is definitely up with that lot, for sure.”

Partly because the Test is being played in late January, and partly because Sri Lanka’s standing as a tourist destination has been regained over two years of recovery since the 2022 economic crisis, there was a huge contingent of Australian spectators to laud Smith in Galle. They appeared to outnumber the locals by a significant margin.

“I’ve tried to put it out of my mind. I probably thought about that a little bit too much in Sydney a few weeks back,” Smith said before the game. “I felt like it was a nice ball to back-foot punch and it sort of just took off. It hit me on the gloves so I couldn’t really do a great deal much else.

“So it’s out of my mind now, I’m just going to go back and play … I’ve never really been one for milestones, but to tick off 10,000 with those guys you mentioned will be pretty special.

“I’ve played over here a little bit, I enjoy playing here, of course it would’ve been great to have done it over in Sydney in front of friends and family but to do it here would be cool as well.”

Mitchell Starc, one of Smith’s long-time teammates, captured the mixture of eccentricity, obsessive training and sheer talent that had made him such a valued member of the side for well over a decade.

“Ahhh ... he’s very strange,” Starc said with a smile. “He’s an amazing thinker on the game. Whether the hours and hours he spends in the nets or his extreme trigger movements, to how focused he is on the field, his hard work has got him close to 10,000 runs.

“I’m sure he’ll be relieved to get one and not have to talk about it any more. But having watched him play and been a teammate of his for a long time ... the work he puts in to try to get better, say, to spend an extra 50 minutes in the nets just to get that feeling just right is a testament to how good he is as a player. He will go down as one of the greats and he thoroughly deserves to.”

Starc also pointed to the value Smith had brought to the team as a captain over time, especially as Pat Cummins’ stand-in whenever injury or circumstances have required.

“As a captain, he’s been phenomenal to play under. In a deputy role in recent times and the times he has taken over have been like riding a bike for him,” Starc said.

“I’ve played a lot under Steve and we’ve got a great relationship there. He thinks about the game a bit differently and you don’t see too many down patches in Steve’s career. He’s always tried to find ways to be the best.”

For Ponting, Smith’s centuries against India on home soil this summer were strong indicators that at 35, he still has several years of Test match runs still ahead of him. The man himself has always been extremely cagey about how much longer he will go on for, but he was feeling the love in Galle on Wednesday.

“It had been a leanish patch for him before the summer, but the two hundreds that he made in the summer, I thought he showed particularly in Melbourne, that innings was as good as I’ve seen him bat in a long time,” Ponting said. “So it’s still there if he wants to it to be.

“It’s a question that comes up every summer, because he’s never said anything definitive about when he might finish or what he’s looking at doing.

“It’ll be a big thing for him to get to 10,000, a great achievement. He’ll be more proud of 10,000 runs than the 30-odd hundreds he’s got.”

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