Steven Smith registers 10th highest Test batting rating of all time

Steven Smith celebrates after reaching his double century at Lord's

Australian batsman Steven Smith, over the last year, has been in batting form that has rarely been witnessed in the sport of cricket. After his double century against England at Lord’s last week, the 26-year-old regained the numero uno spot in the ICC Rankings for Test batsmen.

Smith’s current rating of 936 is not only the highest in the world currently but also gets the New South Welshman into the top 10 batsmen of all time according to the ICC Rankings for Test batsmen. Only 9 batsmen in history have had a higher rating as Test batsmen than Smith’s rating at this moment.

Out of the 9 batsmen, only Ricky Ponting and Kumar Sangakkara are the ones who achieved the feat after 2000, with six of the names getting on the list because of their achievements before 1960. As expected, Sir Don Bradman leads the list, with a rating of 961, which he achieved in 1948.

Smith, not only overtook de Villiers in the current rankings, but he also relegated the South African to 11^th spot on the all-time list. De Villiers registered a rating of 935 last year after he had a run of 50+ scores in 12 consecutive Test matches which is a world record.

Smith overtakes legends

Interestingly, this rating puts Smith ahead of some legends of the game over the past 20 years like Jacques Kallis (joint 11th), Brian Lara (25th), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (28th), Sachin Tendulkar (30th) and Rahul Dravid (34th).

One must note that these all-time ratings indicate the peak of a batsman rather than his entire career. So, the top batsmen on this list aren’t really the top 10 Test batsmen of all time.

Here are the 10 best ratings achieved by a Test batsman:

Rank	Players	Team	Rating	Year
1	Sir Don Bradman	Australia	961	1948
2	Sir Len Hutton	England	945	1954
3	Sir Jack Hobbs	England	942	1912
	Ricky Ponting	Australia	942	2006
5	Peter May	England	941	1956
6	Sir Clyde Walcott	West Indies	938	1955
	Sir Viv Richards	West Indies	938	1981
	Sir Garry Soberbs	West Indies	938	1967
	Kumar Sangakkara	Sri Lanka	938	2007
10	Steven Smith	Australia	936	2015