Live Score
Cricket Teams
Cricket Players
Steve Smith's last great home Ashes? Age curve, decline and the one big question Australia can't dodge
In the 2017-18 Ashes, Steve Smith scored 687 runs in seven innings at an average of 137.40, marking an explosive peak.
For a decade, a home Ashes in Australia has come with a built-in warning for England: sooner or later, Steve Smith will take a series hostage. As he approaches 36, that assumption is no longer automatic. This 2025-26 Ashes is starting to feel less like just another chapter and more like a final exam of how much greatness he has left.
The raw volume is still absurd - nearly 10,500 Test runs at an average in the mid-50s, but the trendline has clearly begun to bend. If you plot Smith’s Ashesh output against his age, you get a steep rise, a ridiculous peak, and then a very real slope downwards.
From 687-run inferno to 244-run reality
Up to the end of the 2021-22 Ashes, Smith’s record against England in Australia reads: 18 Tests, 30 innings, 1,417 runs at 54.50 average, five hundreds, highest 239. That is the baseline England are still terrified of.
But the year-wise breakdown shows how dramatically his home Ashes have moved through phases. As a 21-year-old in 2010-11, he scored 159 runs in six innings. By the 2013-14 season, he was a proper batter and a mainstay of the team. Smith scored 327 runs in nine innings in this series at an average of 40.87, while also getting his first Ashes hundred.
Then comes the supernova. In the 2017-18 Ashes, Smith’s line exploded: He scored 687 runs in seven innings at an average of 137.40. He had three centuries and two fifties in the series. This is the version of Smith England still see when they close their eyes.
From there, the age graph tilts. By the time England returned in 2021-22, he was 32 and the numbers are mortal again: 244 runs in eight innings at an average of 30.50 with just two half-centuries. The home Ashes average of 54.50 is now being propped by the 2017-18 spike rather than adding more masterpieces.
Also Read: Weakest in 15 years, but 99 wins in…: Reminding the bitter truth of Australia still being outright favourites for Ashes
That is why 2025-26 feels like a last great window rather than a farewell lap. If Steve Smith can summon one more 400-plus series at 36, he will blend the age-curve a second time and lock his home Ashes record among all-time absurdities. If he doesn’t, the evidence will simply say the peak passed with that 687-run inferno- and the last two home Ashes were the start of a very human decline.
