Hyderabad: Returning to Test cricket after a gap of 16 months and having missed three innings of the 5-match series, Steve Smith still managed to astonish everyone with a prolific Test batting performance in the series.
Having walked out to boos in this year's Ashes series, Smith walked off to a standing ovation when the former Australian skipper fell for 23 on Day 4 of the 5th Ashes test which coincidentally is his lowest score in the series. This also was the only time in the series when he failed to cross the 50-run mark.
Smith ended the series with 774 runs from seven innings at an average of 110.57. This is the highest tally of runs scored by a batsman since 1994 in a Test series. Brian Lara had earlier amassed 778 runs in a series.
Smith also became the highest run-scorer in a Test series of the 21st century having gone past his own record of scoring 769 runs against India during the 2014-15 season.
Smith also registered 10 consecutive 50+ scores against England, a feat that no batsman had ever managed before. Previously, Inzamam-Ul-Haq was the only batsman who had nine consecutive 50+ scores against England.
Further, 774 runs by Steve Smith in the currently concluded series was the fifth-highest run tally for a batsman in an Ashes series and the highest run tally since 1989. The batsmen who have managed more than Smith in the history of the series are Don Bradman (974 runs in the 1930 series), Wally Hammond (905 runs in the 1928/29 series), Mark Taylor (839 runs in the 1989 series) and Don Bradman (810 in the 1936/37 series).
Smith also joins an elite list of batsmen who have registered more than 700 runs in a Test series more than once. The others who have done this before are Don Bradman, Sunil Gavaskar, Brian Lara, Everton Weekes, and Gary Sobers.
