Top 5 batsmen with best Innings-to-Hundred ratio in international cricket

#3 Steve Smith (7.42 innings per hundred)

Smith's roar after winning the World Cup.

From a leg-spinner who could bat a bit to a batsman marauding towards greatness synonymous to Bradman, Steve Smith's story truly panders to the romantics of this beautiful game. Smith made his international debut for Australia against Pakistan in 2010 as a leg-spinner who could bat a bit, amid skepticism on his credentials by fans and pundits alike. After having copped a plethora of criticism on his selection or his pedigree as a Test match player, Smith was axed from all formats of the game after Australia lost the coveted urn at home to the English in the summer of 2010-11.

However, it was the same opposition three years later that saw the resurgence of Smith. His unorthodox technique along with an exaggerated trigger movement coupled with a constant shuffle paved the way for Smith's redemption as his crucial hundred at Melbourne Cricket Ground as the Aussies to clinched the Ashes in 2013-14. If 2013-14 was an indication of Smith's resurgence, the succeeding season would establish his credentials as the best Test batter. Smith scored over 700 runs against India at home in 2014-15 empowering him to reach the zenith of Test rankings.

Nevertheless, his finest hour in Test cricket arrived last year when he scored a tenacious hundred in the second innings at Pune on a dust-bowl masquerading as the first Test pitch to help Australia win their Test in India since Nagpur, 2004.

Smith's surge in the limited overs format, albeit not in the same proportion, was on full show during the victorious 2015 World Cup campaign for Aussies, where Smith (56 in the finals) fittingly hit the winning run. Smith, in his seven years of international cricket, has already compiled 31 hundred, and with a substantial part of a decade of cricket still left in him, he might just go on to redefine the benchmark of greatness by the time he finishes.