Some moments in cricket feel bigger than the match itself and Steve Smith created one of those at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Leading Australia in the fifth and final Test of the 2025–26 Ashes series, Smith once again proved why he is considered one of the finest batters of his generation.
Batting at number five in Australia’s first innings, Steve Smith produced a masterclass, scoring 138 runs from 220 balls. It was not just a captain’s knock under pressure but an innings packed with milestones. With this century, Smith registered his 37th hundred in Test cricket and climbed to become the second highest run-scorer in the Ashes history.
More significantly, the knock pushed him past a landmark that very few batters have ever touched. Steve Smith completed 5,000 international runs against England across Tests, ODIs and T20Is, becoming only the second player in history to do so. In the process, he went one step further by overtaking the legendary Sir Don Bradman to become the highest run-scorer in international cricket against England.
Don Bradman had accumulated 5,028 runs against England over 63 innings in 37 Tests during his storied career. Steve Smith has now gone beyond that mark, taking his tally to 5,094 runs against England across 122 innings in 90 matches spanning all formats. Before Smith, only Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli had managed to score more than 5,000 international runs against a single opposition.
The overall world record for most runs against one team still belongs to Sachin Tendulkar who scored 6,707 runs against Australia, followed by Virat Kohli with 5,551 runs against the same opponents. Steve Smith now finds himself in that elite group.
Against England in Test cricket alone, Steve Smith has scored 3,691 runs in 73 innings of 41 matches, along with 13 centuries. In limited-overs cricket against England, he has added 1,245 runs in ODIs and 158 runs in T20Is. Only Bradman, with 19 Test centuries, has more hundreds and runs against England than Smith in the longest format.
At the SCG, Steve Smith did not just score runs — he carved his name deeper into cricketing history.
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