Steven Peter Devereux Smith (born 2 June 1989) is an Australian cricketer who represents Australia, New South Wales Blues, Sydney Sixers and Rising Pune Supergiant. He is currently the captain of the Australia national cricket team across all the three formats. Although he was initially selected for Australia as an all-rounder who could bowl right-arm leg spin, Smith now plays primarily as a batsman. On 20 March 2017 he reached a Test batting rating of 941, the fifth highest of all time.
As of December 2016, Smith is the top-ranked Test batsman in the world, according to the ICC Player Rankings. Smith was the leading run scorer in 2014–15 Border-Gavaskar Trophy series against India. In 2015, he won the Allan Border Medal for the best player in Australian Cricket. In June 2015, he was moved up to the coveted no. 3 spot in the Test batting order for the series against the West Indies and the 2015 Ashes series, a position previously held by Ricky Ponting. After taking over full-time captaincy of the national team, Smith generally batted at no. 3 until recently, as that position is currently occupied by Usman Khawaja. Though Smith covered for him again in the inaugural day-night Test match in Adelaide, he moved back to the no. 4 spot in the batting order, following Khawaja's return from injury.
On 23 December 2015, Smith was awarded the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for being named the ICC Cricketer of the Year as well as Test Cricketer of the Year for the 2014–15 season.[10]
In 2014, Martin Crowe described Smith as one of the young Fab Four of Test Cricket along with Joe Root, Kane Williamson and Virat Kohli.[11][12]
