Steve Smith
Steve Smith - professional Australia batter
Steve Smith is considered one of the most famous cricketers globally (test average – 947). He led the Australian national team at one time, but several circumstances forced him to leave the captain’s post.
Nevertheless, he continues to play for the team as a batsman, showing excellent results and admiring fans of the sport, although initially, Steve Smith took part in the games as a bowler. Only after some time, after weighing all the pros and cons, he was transferred to the role of a batsman (as it turned out, not in vain). Smith’s high performance allows us to compare him with the legendary Donald Bradman: Steve is the second-fastest batsman after Bradman.
Steve Smith was born on June 2, 1989 in Sydney. His father is Australian and his mother is English. Due to this position, Smith has dual Australian and British citizenship. Before starting cricket, Steve attended Menai High School but dropped out at 17. Of course, he did this to devote himself entirely to cricket. In one of his interviews, Steve Smith said that he was “plump” in childhood, so he now focuses on a low-carb diet, tries to avoid alcohol.
Little is known about Steve Smith’s personal life, but that’s enough. He began dating student Dani Willis in 2011. She was attending the Department of Commerce and Law at McQuore University. The couple announced their engagement 6 years later, and they got married on September 15, 2018, in Berrima, New South Wales.
In addition to cricket, Steve Smith is fond of tennis but does not play professionally. The athlete actively maintains his pages on social networks Instagram (over 2.7 million subscribers) and Twitter (over 1.8 million subscribers). In 2020, Steve Smith was among the top 10 highest-paid cricketers in the world ($ 2.4 million in 2019).
Steve Smith: Professional Path, Ball Scandal, Present
Steve Smith began to play actively at big matches in 2008. Then he was accepted into the Australian team, where he made his debut at the Cricket World Under-19 Championship. The tournament was held in Malaysia, and Steve then made 114 runs and took seven wickets in four games.
Steve Smith made his first-class debut on January 25, 2008, when he played for the New South Wales team against the Western Australia. As part of the same club, he made his Twenty20 debut in the KFC Big Bash Tournament, in which he became the best player in wickets and was also recognized as the second athlete of the tournament.
During his long career, Steve Smith has played for 9 clubs: the New South Wales, the Worcestershire, the Sydney Sixers, the Pune Warriors, the Rajasthan Royals, the Rising Pune Supergiant, the Barbados Tridents, the Comilla Victorians, the Delhi Capitals. In addition, he has been a permanent member of the Australian national cricket team since 2010.
The most negative moment in Steve Smith’s career was in 2018: he was involved in a cricket ball scam. March 25 was the third day of the third match between the national teams of Australia and South Africa. At some point, the judge noticed something suspicious: one of the players of the Australian national team, Cameron Bancroft, rubbed the ball with some strange yellow rag, which he immediately hid in his sweatpants. When the judge asked Bancroft what it was, he replied that he simply wiped the ball with a napkin, and this is not prohibited. Later it turned out that the player cheated: in fact, he rubbed the ball with sandpaper and only on one side. The trajectory of such a ball is more difficult to calculate, so this action should have added to the advantages of the Australian national team. However, this did not help, and the team lost the third test match to South Africa and lost with a total score of 1:2.
During the proceedings, it turned out that Steve Smith, then the national team captain, was informed about the manipulations being carried out. His assistant David Warner knew it too. As a result, Smith and Warner were suspended from cricket for 12 months, and Bancroft – for 9. Naturally, Smith was also stripped of the captain’s position.
Steve Smith now continues to play cricket for the Delhi Capitals team. And, of course, for the Australian national team.
Steve Smith has won numerous awards, including the Australian One Day International Player of the Year (2015 and 2020), ICC Men’s Test Player of the Decade (2011 – 2020) and many others.
