Steve Smith suffers embarrassing new blow as Aussie cricket star slumps to 10-year low

Steve Smith's horror run of form has seen him drop out of the ICC men's Test batting rankings for the first time since 2015 in a fresh blow for the under-fire batsman. While much of the attention heading into the second Test against India was on Marnus Labuschagne's struggle for runs, the 30-year-old stepped up under the bright lights.

However, the same can't be said for Smith, who was once again dismissed cheaply in his sole effort at the crease in Adelaide. Smith is arguably the most out-of-form batsman in the Australian Test team, averaging just 17.4 runs in his last nine innings. And the 35-year-old's spot in the side is under serious threat.

While Smith is undoubtedly one of the greatest to ever do it - scoring the fourth most runs in Australian Test history - his form over the last 24 months has been well below what we have come to expect of the batsman. The 35-year-old currently averages 56.09 - his lowest since 2016 - and therefore it is no surprise that he has finally dropped out of the rankings amongst the elite batsmen in the world.

In the latest update, Smith has fallen from 8th to 11th and it is the first time in almost a decade the 35-year-old isn't in the conversation of the best batsman in the world. Smith long battled with Indian star Virat Kohli for that title, but now both the Aussie and the Indian veteran find themselves outside of the ICC men's Test batting top 10 and on the decline. Meanwhile, fellow Aussie Travis Head has climbed to 5th in the world after another stellar performance with the bat, making 140 in Australia's win over India in the second Test.

Why is Steve Smith suddenly struggling to make runs?

Smith's struggles with the bat cannot be put down to one thing. Rather it is a host of compounding factors that has made runs for the Aussie hard to come by. The 35-year-old's decline has come with him transitioning into his mid-30s and he is undoubtedly coming to the end of what has been an illustrious career, where his hand-eye coordination is not what it once was.

While the 35-year-old has also become a victim of his own success, with various cricketing nations concocting a plan to dismiss him. Various techniques such as yorkers, bouncers and targeting the corridor of uncertainty have all tried and failed to regularly dismiss Smith but in recent years bowlers have begun to target his pads and body, a tactic that has been an overwhelming success.

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The plan was first concocted some four years ago by Indian coaches who decided they needed to starve Smith of off-side opportunities by bowling at his stumps and body. And that tactic has been on display again in this year's Border Gavaskar series. The plan to bowl at his body and at his stumps saw him dismissed cheaply twice in the first Test against India and he was again undone by the plan in the second Test, tickling one down leg side that wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant caught with ease. In his sole innings in the second Test, his 2 off 11 balls looked to the naked eye as a man out of form but it was as much that as it was the specialised game plan working.

In Smith’s battling 11-ball stay, he let just one ball go wide of off-stump and lobbed an edge through the cordon just before he was sent back to the pavilion as the Indians zeroed in on his middle and leg stump, fully testing his defence off both feet before he finally knicked off down leg side.

Steve Smith's new struggle laid bare

For a decade, Smith's freakishly good eye made him the best player of balls on his stumps in world cricket. But in the last 18 months balls on his stumps and at his body have been his achilles heel.

According to CricViz statistics, from 2014 until the start of the 2023 Ashes series, Smith averaged 40.35 runs per dismissal for balls directed at the stumps - beneath his career average but still far better than any other batsman in the sport. On average Smith was dismissed every 54 balls from these types of deliveries.

However, since the start of the 2023 Ashes, he is averaging just 12 runs per dismissal from balls at his stumps and loses his wicket every 20 deliveries. And following his latest dismissal cricket commentator Isa Guha claimed teams have simply worked out how to bowl to Smith.

“A lot of opposition teams do set that plan to him, so I don’t think they would have been too surprised about it,” she said after Smith was dismissed in the second Test. “The angle that’s created, you always feel like you’re in the game if you are Jasprit Bumrah because of the extra bounce that he gets, so it was excellent work from Rishabh Pant to be aware of that."