How Smith can be best since Bradman: Ponting

He picked him as a future Test captain in 2013 and now Ricky Ponting believes Steve Smith can be Australia's greatest batsman since Bradman, issuing a challenge to the current skipper in the process: sustain your current output for another 100 Tests.

Smith's phenomenal deeds with the bat have been lauded repeatedly in recent times, and never more so than following his match-winning 109 in the first Test against India in Pune.

It gave the right-hander an 18th hundred in just 51 Tests, an unprecedented five straight tons against India, and propelled his ICC rankings points to 933 – the sixth-highest of any batsman in history.

The hundred also put Smith just 112 runs short of becoming the equal third-fastest ever to 5000 runs, a feat he could achieve in the second Test in Bangalore.

Quick Single: Smith leads from front with epic Indian ton

Presently, he has 4888 runs from 94 innings, meaning if he was to post the required 112 in the first innings in Bangalore he would be level with legends Sir Garfield Sobers, Sunil Gavaskar, Sir Viv Richards and Matthew Hayden, and behind only Sir Donald Bradman (56 innings) and Sir Jack Hobbs (91 innings) as the fastest to the significant milestone.

Ponting, by such lofty comparisons, was a relatively slow starter to his Test career; he took 110 innings to crack 5000 runs (26th fastest all time), and had only half of Smith's 18 centuries at that point.

However, the Tasmanian enjoyed a period of sustained dominance for around five years thereafter, scoring a remarkable 24 hundreds in 53 Tests between March 2002 and December 2006.

At the back-end of that streak, Ponting's average hit an all-time high 60.46 in his 107th Test, and it's that kind of longevity the legendary batsman says is the only thing standing between Smith passing him as a batsman.

"If Smithy keeps maintaining what he's doing now for another 100 Tests then he probably will end up being a better player than me," Ponting told News Ltd. "He's not doing much wrong at the moment, is he?

"I know he's got great passion and got great drive to be the best player he can be and probably the best player the world has ever seen, which is a great attitude to have.

"I wanted to be the best player in the world as well and I wanted to be able to sustain it for a long period of time.

"And that's what really separates the great players; how long you can actually sustain a high level of excellence."

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Ponting saw in Smith what few others did in 2013, commenting on his game when he returned to the Test side in India after two years out of the Test side honing his batting in the Sheffield Shield.

"I think we've seen Steven Smith develop into a better player in the last 12 months than he was when we first saw him play for Australia," the former skipper said in the week leading up to the Mohali Test of that infamous tour, in which the then 23-year-old made a career-best 92.

Several months later, when Australia were in England for the Ashes series in which Smith posted his maiden hundred in the final Test at The Oval, Ponting made another observation.

Quick Single: Pune hundred puts Smith in rare air

"I rate Steve Smith very highly and think he is an important part of Australian cricket's future," he wrote in his book, At the Close of Play.

"This came home to me during the 2013 Ashes when somebody asked me on radio who was a potential next captain and as I quickly went through the list of candidates he seemed to be the obvious one."

The dam wall burst thereafter for the unorthodox Smith, who at the time was finding his way as a No.6 batsman under the captaincy of Michael Clarke.

Hundreds two and three came in the home Ashes that following summer, and by the end of 2014 he'd made five hundreds in nine Tests and, little more than 12 months after his maiden century, he assumed the captaincy in a stand-in capacity for an injured Clarke.

Two-and-a-half years later, after 21 Tests in charge, his average as skipper stands at 73.37 – second only to Bradman for captains to have led in 10-plus matches.

"The thing I love about him is he leads from the front, doesn't he," Ponting said in December after Smith made a first-innings hundred to set up a fifth-day victory against Pakistan in Brisbane.

"Whenever there's a tough situation with the bat, he's always the first to put his hand up and get the job done.

"That will make the players gravitate more towards him as a captain and a leader as well.

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"That's the most important thing a lot of the time.

"Since these changes have been made and a few younger faces have come into the side, it does seem … that Smith has said, 'Right, it's time to stamp my authority on this team' and take over and lead from the front and hopefully get some results along the way.

"The response they showed to win the Test match in Adelaide against South Africa was exactly what Australian cricket needed at the time.

"From that moment on, things have seemed to go pretty well."

Test Squads

India (for first two Tests): Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravichandaran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Karun Nair, Jayant Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Abhinav Mukund, Hardik Pandya.

Australia: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Ashton Agar, Jackson Bird, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Stephen O'Keefe, Matthew Renshaw, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade

Australia's schedule in India

Feb 17-19, Tour match v India A, Mumbai

Feb 23-27, First Test: Australia won by 333 runs, Pune

Mar 4-8, Second Test, Bengaluru

Mar 16-20, Third Test, Ranchi

Mar 25-29, Fourth Test, Dharamsala