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 11th 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:
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