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.

Up to the end of the 2021-22 Ashes, Smith’s record against England in Australia

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