Tenacity trumped technique for Smith

Times Media - March 5 2014

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

Graeme Smith earned the praise of some of his most illustrious contemporaries yesterday as a technically wanting but characterful cricketer and strong leader who put his team ahead of his own aspirations.

His reward was to play a major role in building the side that has been officially recognised as the best in the test arena since August 2012.

Smith’s retirement from international cricket was announced late on Monday night - day three of the third and deciding test against Australia at Newlands.

That ended his tenure at 109 test captaincies, a record. Smith was also cricket’s longest-serving test captain, having been appointed in 2003.

A combination of flagging form - he did not reach 50 in his last nine test innings - the legacy of ankle surgery last year and an accident involving his daughter is thought to have prompted his decision to quit at the relatively young age of 33.

“You toy with a few ideas and a lot of things go through your mind,” Shaun Pollock said in explaining Smith’s likely mindset. “Captaining SA for a long time is mentally tough: it’s our team when we’re winning and Graeme’s team when we’re losing.”

Smith was 22 and had played just 31 first-class matches, including 10 tests, when he was appointed after Pollock was sacked in the wake of SA’s first-round exit from the 2003 World Cup.

“When he started, people said, ‘Where’s your performances to back it up?’, and at 22 you don’t know a lot,” Pollock said. “It wasn’t long and he had two double centuries (against England in July 2003, which were actually his second and third test double centuries).

“He always had a mature cricket brain and we always believed he would grow in strength. In the last five or six years he’s really grown as a captain; he knows how to get the best out of his team.”

But that didn’t stop Pollock from taking a swipe at Smith’s unlovely style of batting.

“I’ve got two daughters, but if I had a boy I would not want him to bat like Graeme Smith,” he said.

“Technically, he wasn’t the best, but from a tenacity and character point-of-view his record sums him up. You don’t always have to look pretty to be effective, and he was very effective.”

In 117 tests, Smith scored 9262 runs at an average of 48.49 with 27 centuries. The 9253 runs he scored for SA - the rest were made for a World XI - made him the Proteas’ second-highest runscorer after Jacques Kallis, who called time on his career in December.

“I can recommend retirement,” Kallis said. “He’ll be able do stuff away from cricket, and I hope SA gives him the recognition he deserves.”

Mark Boucher paid tribute to Smith’s fighting spirit.

“Because his technique wasn’t as good as Jacques Kallis’, who could fall back on that technique when he wasn’t at his best, Graeme has needed heart and passion to dominate,” Boucher said.

“He had the character to go out there and front up. He believed in his way of doing things.”

Boucher said Smith insisting, against doctor’s orders, on batting with a broken hand against Australia in Sydney in January 2009 epitomised his character.

“The Aussies fell in love with a captain they had wanted so much to hate,” Boucher said.

Pollock, Kallis and Boucher all supported the appointment of AB de Villiers, SA’s one-day captain, as Smith’s successor.