From making his Test debut as a leg-spinner, Steve Smith has come a long way to become the batting mainstay of Australia. He is currently the fourth-highest run-getter for the Aussies in Test cricket with a total of 9685 runs from 109 matches, including 32 hundreds and 41 fifties.

Smith averages a whopping 56.97, the best currently among active Test cricketers and also the highest compared to the other three Australian batters above him in the run-scoring charts, Ricky Ponting, Allan Border and Steve Waugh. 

Smith’s average earmarks his consistency in the longest format of the game. Even among his decorated peers like Joe Root, Kane Williamson and Virat Kohli, Smith has stood tall and held his own in the whites. 

Smith will enter the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 against India, starting on November 22, with some unfinished business. Though he finished as the second-highest run-getter in the four-Test series in 2020-21 with 313 runs from four matches at an average of 44.71, it was the first time that Smith lost a Test series to India Down Under.

Smith’s two fifties and a century for the Aussies could not save the hosts from suffering a 2-1 defeat at the hands of India four years ago. The former Australian captain will hope for redemption this time around, with the team playing a five-Test series against India for the first time since 1992.

With Australia and India placed first and second in the World Test Championship 2023-25 cycle, it will be a high-octane clash with both teams targeting a spot in the final of the current WTC cycle to be played at Lord’s in June 2025. 

Moreover, the Australian middle-order batter is 315 runs short of becoming only the 15th batter in Test cricket to complete 10,000 runs. So, he will be keen to make this series against India memorable, both from an individual and team perspective.

Smith steps into the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India having played a total of five Tests in 2024 with a modest return of 213 runs, including one fifty, at an average of 30.42. 

However, he showed his class with an unbeaten 91 in the second innings of the Brisbane Test against the West Indies in January early this year. Smith carried his bat in Australia’s narrow eight-run defeat after opening the batting on a pitch that assisted the fast bowlers.

With his last century in the Test format coming against England at Lord’s in the Ashes series in June 2023, Smith will be itching to get another big score behind him.

Incidentally, Smith, who led the Washington Freedom to their inaugural Major League Cricket title in July this year, had shone with a match-winning century in the last meeting between India and Australia in Tests. 

His exploits with the bat, along with his Washington Freedom teammate Travis Head, in the WTC 2021-23 final at the Oval gave the Aussies their inaugural WTC title.

Come November 22, Smith will step onto the field with some happy memories from this fixture in the past.