The Australian top order batsman Marnus Labuschagne, who is currently holding the no. 2 spot in the ICC rankings of test batsmen, has passed a big statement and has said that Steve Smith is the second-best ever test batsman in the history of the game. Labuschagne reckons the only player who can be kept ahead of Smith in terms of test match batsmanship is Sir Donald Bradman.
This is a big statement because although Steve Smith has scored more than 8000 runs in test cricket at an average of 60 and has got 28 test match hundreds to his name, there are several other batsmen in the history of test cricket who, some fans might argue, are better than Smith.
The likes of Sachin Tendulkar, who doesn’t just hold the record of scoring the most number of hundreds in test match cricket, but also has the highest tally of runs in the longest format of the game, and the likes of Ricky Ponting, who is Australia’s highest run scorer in test match cricket till date, are some of the players who can be arguably kept ahead of Smith as far as the list of best test match batsmen is concerned.
Steve Smith had scored 3 hundreds in the last Border-Gavaskar test series in India
But, according to Marnus Labuschagne, who was recently speaking to Fox Cricket, Smith comes second to Don Bradman because of the consistency he has shown so far in his test career and because of the fact that he has scored runs with the same consistency in all parts of the world.
Marnus Labuschagne said – "After Don Bradman, Steve Smith is the best Test Batsman of all time". (To Fox Cricket)
— CricketMAN2 (@ImTanujSingh) November 18, 2022
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Two of the toughest places to tour for an Australian batsman historically have been England and India and Smith has got several hundreds to his name in both these countries. In fact, in the last Border-Gavaskar trophy that Australia had played in India 5 years back in 2017, Smith had scored 3 hundreds in 4 test matches.
