Steve Smith

Steve Smith did not just break the mould of an Australian batter, he rebuilt it in his own image. Picked first as a leg-spinning all-rounder, he evolved into the most obsessive run-machine of his generation. His technique defies the textbook, all twitchy shuffles and jerky leaves, yet it redefined how a Test batsman can dominate without conventional grace. Obsessed with the crease by his own admission, he built the world's safest defence and turned patience into hundreds that wore attacks into exhaustion.

His honours include the 2015 World Cup, the 2023 World Test Championship, the 2023 ODI World Cup and multiple Ashes wins, and during his prime his Test average sat in the sixties. Since returning from the 2018 ball-tampering ban that cost him a year and the captaincy, he has silenced critics by piling up runs at home and away, adding to his collection of Allan Border Medals and working his way back into the leadership group, standing in as Test captain when needed. Those who called his method a fluke watched him plunder England for twin hundreds at Edgbaston in 2019, in his first Test back, and grind out runs in Asia. At his core he remains a batter who toys with bowlers' patience, an iron game face hidden behind the comical shuffles. Even in his mid-thirties, now reinvented as a Test opener-turned-No.4 with more than 10,000 runs, his appetite to occupy the crease shows no sign of cooling.