Ashes 2019: Steve Smith's superlative series with the bat in numbers

After spending 16 months away from red-ball cricket, Steve Smith stormed into Test cricket with a record-breaking effort in the Ashes series. He helped Australia to end their Birmingham jinx with twin 140s but the series was levelled in Leeds where Smith went missing after suffering a concussion at Lord’s. He returned with a double century at the Manchester to help Aussies to retain the Ashes. Smith’s first failure of the series came in the last innings where he got out for 23 at The Oval. England won this match to level the 5-match series by a 2-2 margin.

All the major stats and numbers from Steve Smith’s record-breaking Ashes series:

1 – Steve Smith is the only one player with three consecutive Ashes series of 500+ runs and also the only player to score a double century in three successive series in the Ashes.

Smith is one of the three players after Sir Donald Bradman (5) and Sir Jack Hobbs (3) with as many as three Ashes series of 500+ runs. He is also one of three players to score as many as three double centuries in the Ashes. Sir Donald Bradman (8) and Wally Hammonds (4) are other two players with three or more double tons.

10 – Smith recorded fifty-plus scores in ten consecutive Test innings against England until the first innings of the Oval Test. All ten scores have been 75+ scores. His ten successive 50+ scores against the English team are the most in a row for any player against an opponent in Test cricket. Pakistan’s Inzamam-ul-Haq had nine in a row also against England between 2001 and 2006.

11 – Smith now has 11 centuries in the Ashes which are the 3rd most by any player. Only Sir Donald Bradman (19) and Sir Jack Hobbs (12) have more Ashes tons than Smith. Six of those 11 tons of Smith came in England the most after Sir Donald Bradman (11) and Steve Waugh (7). No England batsman has more than five Ashes tons at home.

140 – Steve Smith became the first player with two 140s in a Test match during the Edgbaston Test match. Overall, he became only the 4th player to score 140+ runs in both innings of a Test match. Allan Border (150* and 153) in the 1980 Lahore Test against Pakistan recorded the only instances of twin 150+ scores in a Test match. Andy Flower (142 & 199*) against South Africa during the 2001 Harare Test and Tillakaratne Dilshan (162 & 143) in the 2009 Chattogram Test against Bangladesh also had twin 140+ scores.

774 – Smith has amassed 774 runs in this Test series; the 5th most by any player in a single Ashes series. These are the 2nd most runs by any player who played a maximum of 7 innings in an Ashes series. Sir Donald Bradman scored 974 runs during the 1930 Ashes from only seven innings; the most by any player in a single Test series.

1251 – Smith has scored 1251 runs across ten innings in the Ashes [Last 4 innings in 2017/18 and first 6 innings in 2019]. These are the most number of runs any player has scored across ten innings in the Ashes. Sir Donald Bradman had 1236 runs between 1937 and 1946 across ten Ashes innings.