Steve Smith’s batting average in Test cricket in every country: South Africa remains a major blip originally appeared on Cricket News. Add Cricket News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
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Australia star Steve Smith averages 56.00 in Tests, with 10,920 runs in 125 matches.
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South Africa is the only country with at least three Tests where he averages under 50, at 41.10.
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Smith has one Test hundred in South Africa, scoring 100 at Centurion in 2014.
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Steve Smith returns to the one country that has resisted his batting
Australia begins their first red-ball tour of South Africa since the 2018 ball-tampering scandal, starting on Friday. The first of three Tests is at Kingsmead in Durban, and the series closes at Newlands in Cape Town. It pits the last two World Test Championship winners against each other.
Steve Smith is in the squad as Pat Cummins’ vice-captain. He arrives with 10,920 runs in 125 Tests, an average of 56.00 and 37 hundreds. He averages 50 or more in seven of the eight countries where he has played at least three Tests. South Africa is the lone exception.
In South Africa, he averages 41.10 across six Tests, almost 15 runs below his career mark. That gap has sat in his record for eight years. Whether it is a real weakness or a small sample is the question hanging over this series.
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Steve Smith’s Test batting average in every country
Away from Australia, Smith averages 53.03 across 61 Tests. That is the record of a batter who does not need home conditions to score. It also makes his South African figure stand out even more, since it sits almost 12 runs below his away mark. His ten host countries cover turning pitches in India and Sri Lanka.
They also include the seam and swing in England and New Zealand and the bounce in the West Indies. Smith has scored heavily on almost all of them. Only three countries sit below 50.
|
Country |
Span |
Mat |
Inns |
NO |
Runs |
HS |
Avg |
100s |
50s |
|
West Indies |
2015-2025 |
4 |
8 |
2 |
410 |
199 |
68.33 |
1 |
2 |
|
Sri Lanka |
2016-2025 |
7 |
11 |
1 |
670 |
145* |
67.00 |
4 |
1 |
|
Australia |
2010-2026 |
64 |
111 |
19 |
5458 |
239 |
59.32 |
19 |
21 |
|
Pakistan |
2022 |
3 |
4 |
0 |
226 |
78 |
56.50 |
0 |
3 |
|
England |
2010-2025 |
23 |
44 |
1 |
2334 |
215 |
54.27 |
8 |
10 |
|
New Zealand |
2016-2024 |
4 |
7 |
1 |
313 |
138 |
52.16 |
1 |
2 |
|
India |
2013-2023 |
10 |
19 |
3 |
805 |
178* |
50.31 |
3 |
1 |
|
UAE |
2014 |
2 |
4 |
0 |
174 |
97 |
43.50 |
0 |
2 |
|
South Africa |
2014-2018 |
6 |
11 |
1 |
411 |
100 |
41.10 |
1 |
2 |
|
Bangladesh |
2017 |
2 |
4 |
0 |
119 |
58 |
29.75 |
0 |
1 |
|
Career |
2010-2026 |
125 |
223 |
28 |
10,920 |
239 |
56.00 |
37 |
45 |
Bangladesh and the UAE each come from a two-Test series, which gave Smith just four innings in each. One big score would change either figure. South Africa is different. Smith has had 11 innings there across two separate tours, and that is enough to call it a trend. It is the only country with a real sample where he falls short of 50.
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That is what makes the gap so hard to ignore. Smith averages 54.27 in England, where the swings and seam test every visiting batter, and 50.31 in India, where spin does the same. South Africa has been tougher on him than either.
MORE: Prediction: South Africa vs. Australia 1st Test lineups and pitch report
South Africa remains Smith’s major blip
Smith has scored 411 runs from 11 innings in South Africa, with one not out. He has one hundred and two fifties in six Tests. His only big score came in his first series there, in 2014. That hundred came at Centurion and was a rescue job. Australia were 4-98 when Smith joined Shaun Marsh just after lunch on day one.
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The pair added 233 for the fifth wicket against Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander. Smith made 100 off 213 balls, and Australia won by 281 runs.
The 2018 tour went very differently. Smith was captain and named Kagiso Rabada as the key contest before the Durban opener. The Newlands match at the centre of the ball-tampering scandal was his last Test in South Africa.
He and David Warner were banned for 12 months. The pattern also shows against South Africa as a team. Smith averages 44.42 in 13 Tests against them, the lowest against any side he has faced in at least 10 Tests. He did pass Don Bradman’s tally of 29 Test hundreds with a 104 against them in Sydney in 2023.
MORE: How to watch SA vs AUS Test series 2026 live: Start time, TV channels and streaming details
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This time, he is the vice-captain to Cummins and has a much smaller role. The final Test is at Newlands, the ground tied to his ban.
The target is clear. To lift his average against South Africa to 50, Smith needs 389 runs from six dismissals, or about 65 an innings. That is demanding, but one big hundred at Kingsmead would put him well on the way. A batter with 37 Test hundreds should be expected to fix it.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
