Is Steve Smith coming close to Virat Kohli-standards in ODI cricket?
Steve Smith took his game in the One-Day Internationals to the next level during the recently concluded 3-match ODI series against India. The Australian No.3 smashed centuries in only 62 balls in successive matches making most of the starts provided by the team’s openers. His knocks played a key role in elevating Australia to huge totals in both matches hosted by the Sydney cricket ground.
Smith won the player of the match awards in both games and was eventually named as the player of the series for helping Australia to an ODI series win at home after three years. The performances brought back the comparisons between Smith and Virat Kohli, the best limited-overs batsman going around.
Steven Peter Devereux Smith. That is all.#OhWhatAFeeling | @Toyota_Aus | #AUSvIND pic.twitter.com/46uCsCTPC8
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) November 29, 2020
The numbers game
Smith has played 128 ODI games where he scored 4378 runs at an average of 43.34 with help of 11 hundreds. On the other hand, Virat has played 251 ODIs thus far which is almost twice that of Smith but his aggregate run-tally is nearly three times (12040 runs) of the Australian and four times his century tally (43 tons). Kohli is known for being consistent and accumulating the runs in the required way.
The Indian skipper has been struggling this year as he hasn’t scored a century in the ODI format for more than 12 months. This could be the reason for the rise in comparisons but Kohli does have a lead by a good margin. It won’t be possible for Smith to reach Kohli’s level of ODI batting but he can match the Indian batsman in impact.
The Australian No.3 already scores over Kohli when it comes to dealing with the knockout matches in the ODI format. Kohli is yet to score a fifty in ODI World Cup knockouts while Smith has hit 50+ runs every time he has turned up with the bat (4 times). If Smith can be consistent especially while chasing which is Kohli’s strength, he can catch up with Virat, at least in impact.
