Majestic Smith passes Hobbs to leave only Bradman clear on top of Ashes mountain | Geoff Lemon
There was a time, while Steve Smith was at the height of his batting prowess, when “best since Bradman” was used with confidence,The thing about that line is that even when the recipient has dominated for years, it gets applied too quickly, given the point of comparison is a career-lasting two decades,Lots of players reach the top for a time, no other has stayed as long,Smith was untouchable for six years before returning to the realm of the merely very good,The combination of those phases, though, took him to a rare position on the third day of the fifth Test in Sydney.
In the statistics of the game there are milestones, then there are mountaintops.For a long time in Smith’s Ashes-heavy career there have been two peaks drawing gradually closer in the mist.Donald Bradman’s 5,028 runs against England is one that even Smith will never climb.Jack Hobbs’s 3,636 runs against Australia is the one he ascended on Tuesday.For almost a century these have been the two leaders of the rivalry, their careers overlapping in the 1928-29 series when Bradman debuted and Hobbs bowed out.
One of the greatest, Hobbs mastered batting in Australia, something so few from England have done.Five centuries at the MCG, two-thirds of his Ashes runs scored on foreign tours rather than on the familiar grounds of home.His record seemed unbreakable until Bradman shot beyond it.So it is a feat of great significance that Smith is now the one sitting second behind Bradman for runs between the nations, as well as second for centuries, passing the 12 that he and Hobbs had shared before Smith’s 129 not out at the SCG.The same number of Tests, too, 41 apiece, though Smith has batted twice more than his predecessor a hundred years before.
It was his fifth home-ground Test hundred, his second in an Ashes match, though home comforts didn’t have him settled early.There were tranches where Smith was twitchy as a mad cat’s tail, defending for a while before trying some outlandish shot in a strange direction, fresh-airing the attempt or making half-contact.Rubber-arming Jacob Bethell’s part-time spin over mid-off for two was one such example, shots where Smith seemed frustrated or bored and wanting to make something else happen.Eventually, though, he settled into his work, occasionally rifling one through the covers in his trademark way, putting every sinew into the shot.The old Smith bubble, perhaps, as he built a partnership with every teammate who came his way.
But the bubble kept popping, whether it was Smith seeming to roll an ankle taking a run, or slipping over multiple times while turning for a second or third.Later he sent Bethell into the stands, and worked him for the three runs to raise the century, a heftier celebration than some.With that done he tried the forehand smash that he played way back in 2014 against India in Brisbane, and signalled wides for his own amusement when Matthew Potts sent one metres over his head.There were few quiet moments in the show.The innings was a throwback because since his period of riches Smith’s Ashes returns have been relatively spare.
He built his reputation between the end of the 2013 England tour and the same trip in 2019.In that span there were 11 Ashes centuries in 32 innings, an even higher hit rate than Bradman’s.But lots of players have hot streaks, while Bradman’s doesn’t require trimming: he made a hundred in his second Test, a hundred in his second-last, and better than a hundred every second match in between.After Smith’s streak, from the final Test of 2019 onwards, this was his 27th Ashes innings and only his second hundred.It closes out a deeply weird series with few opportunities for runs.
Smith has been not out for a low score three times, thanks to the small run chases of Perth and Brisbane, and the collapse in Melbourne.He missed Adelaide entirely.That left him four first-innings hits, which have included his Brisbane 62 and this Sydney ton.The series underlines that Smith is not Australia’s most important batter, currently, that’s Travis Head.His 163 in Sydney set the base for Smith to build on.
However unlikely it seems, the team’s most aggressive player is also its most consistent,Head’s proclivity to score from the jump plays a part: even in his early career when he didn’t make big scores, he always made a contribution,Once he started making hundreds, a few ducks joined the mix, but three centuries in an Ashes series is rare air,Both will play a part in Australia’s busy stretch that starts later this year, with Test trips to South Africa, India, and England, as well as the 150th anniversary Test in Melbourne next year,For those selected, that will add the quirk to their records of a non-Ashes England Test.
It’s the kind of high-profile environment that has previously suited Head just fine, and the runs will still count towards that overall tally for Smith to build his total just a little closer to the Don.
Wave of Grok AI fake images of women and girls appalling, says UK minister
The UK technology secretary has called a wave of images of women and children with their clothes digitally removed generated by Elon Musk’s Grok AI “appalling and unacceptable in decent society”.After thousands of intimate deepfakes circulated online, Liz Kendall said X, Musk’s social media platform, needed to “deal with this urgently” and she backed the UK regulator Ofcom to “take any enforcement action it deems necessary”.“We cannot and will not allow the proliferation of these demeaning and degrading images, which are disproportionately aimed at women and girls,” she said. “Make no mistake, the UK will not tolerate the endless proliferation of disgusting and abusive material online. We must all come together to stamp it out
‘I felt violated’: Elon Musk’s AI chatbot crosses a line
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. Happy new year! I hope your 2026 is off to a great start. Today in tech, we are examining the output of Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, and the US’s ban on foreign drones.Late last week, Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot unleashed a flood of images of women, nude and in very little clothing, both real and imagined, in response to users’ public requests on X, formerly Twitter. Mixed in with the generated images of adults were ones of young girls – children – likewise wearing “minimal clothing”, according to Grok itself
Nvidia CEO reveals new ‘reasoning’ AI tech for self-driving cars
The billionaire boss of the chipmaker Nvidia, Jensen Huang, has unveiled new AI technology that he says will help self-driving cars think like humans to navigate more complex situations.The world’s most valuable company is to roll out the new technology, Alpamayo, which is designed to help self-driving cars handle tricky situations such as sudden roadworks or unusual driver behaviour on the road, rather than just reacting to previous patterns.Nvidia claims Alpamayo will bring chain-of-thought reasoning to self-driving vehicles, combining what the car sees with language-like reasoning.In a speech at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Nvidia founder and chief executive said: “The ChatGPT moment for physical AI is here, when machines begin to understand, reason and act in the real world. Robotaxis are among the first to benefit
Leading AI expert delays timeline for its possible destruction of humanity
A leading artificial intelligence expert has rolled back his timeline for AI doom, saying it will take longer than he initially predicted for AI systems to be able to code autonomously and thus speed their own development toward superintelligence.Daniel Kokotajlo, a former employee of OpenAI, sparked an energetic debate in April by releasing AI 2027, a scenario that envisions unchecked AI development leading to the creation of a superintelligence, which – after outfoxing world leaders – destroys humanity.The scenario rapidly won admirers and detractors. The US vice-president, JD Vance, appeared to reference AI 2027 in an interview last May when discussing the US’s artificial intelligence arms race with China. Gary Marcus, an emeritus professor of neuroscience at New York University, called the piece a “work of fiction” and various of its conclusions “pure science fiction mumbo jumbo”
AI images of Maduro capture reap millions of views on social media
Minutes after Donald Trump announced a “large-scale strike” against Venezuela early on Saturday morning, false and misleading AI-generated images began flooding social media. There were fake photos of Nicolás Maduro being escorted off a plane by US law enforcement agents, images of jubilant Venezuelans pouring into the streets of Caracas and videos of missiles raining down on the city – all fake.The fabricated content intermixed with real videos and photos of US aircraft flying over the Venezuelan capital and explosions lighting up the dark sky. A lack of verified information about the raid coupled with AI tools’ rapidly advancing capabilities made discerning fact from fiction about the incursion on Caracas difficult.By the time Trump posted a verified photo of Maduro blindfolded, handcuffed and dressed in grey sweatpants aboard the USS Iwo Jima warship, the fake images with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents had already gone viral
Grok AI still being used to digitally undress women and children despite suspension pledge
Degrading images of children and women with their clothes digitally removed by Grok AI continue to be shared on Elon Musk’s X, despite the platform’s commitment to suspend users who generate them.After days of concern over use of the chatbot to alter photographs to create sexualised pictures of real women and children stripped to their underwear without their consent, the UK’s communication’s watchdog, Ofcom, said on Monday that it had made “urgent contact with X and xAI to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the UK”. Ofcom added that it would assess whether an investigation is necessary based on the company’s response.Meanwhile, politicians and women’s rights campaigners accused the UK government of “dragging its heels” by failing to enact legislation that was passed six months ago making the creation of such intimate images illegal.The trend, which went viral over the new year period, also prompted the European Commission to say on Monday that it was “very seriously” looking into complaints that Grok was being used to generate and disseminate sexually explicit childlike images
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