GRAEME SMITH

'Graeme Craig Smith' (born 1 February 1981 in Johannesburg) is a cricketer who became the youngest ever player to captain the South African cricket team at the age of 22 years when he was selected to take over from Shaun Pollock after the 2003 Cricket World Cup after Pollock had miscalculated the Duckworth-Lewis calculations to win the game.. He is a tall and strongly built left handed opening batsman standing at 6'3 and 15 stone who is usually very leg-side orientated at the crease. He is also an occasional off spin bowler.

Contents

Early Years

Career Highlights

Personality and Controversies

Test Centuries

One Day International Centuries

References

External links

Early Years

Smith grew up in Houghton, Johannesburg and was a prolific run scorer in school cricket at the King Edward School in Johannesburg. He played 3 'Tests' for South Africa Under-19's and 7 one dayers for them. He was unsuccessful in the Tests, only managing one fifty but managed 5 half centuries in the shorter form which gave him an average of 84 from his 7 games.
He made his Test debut for South Africa in 2002 in Cape Town against Australia, batting at number three. The second innings of the match saw him notch his first half-century.

Career Highlights

He showed his talent in the tour of England in 2003 when he made double centuries in consecutive Test matches: a national record of 277 at Edgbaston, and 259 at Lord's. His score of 259 at Lord's is, in fact, the highest score at the ground by a foreign player. The previous record was 254 by Sir Donald Bradman. These performances prompted Alec Stewart to call him "the most impressive 22-year-old I have seen in cricket". ^[1]
He joined English county Somerset as captain for part of the 2005 season and scored a century in their notable victory over tourists Australia. Against Leicestershire at Taunton he smashed his maiden first class triple hundred with 311 off just 255 balls. The innings included 11 sixes. He also hit 105 in the Twenty20 Cup, to become one of only 11 players to have hit a century in the Twenty20 era so far. Smith also captained the team to victory on finals day to lift the trophy.
Despite receiving much criticism when he was initially chosen to captain South Africa as the time Smith was only 22 years old and had played only 8 test matches., Smith has matured into a capable Test and ODI captain. His growth in the role was evidenced when he was selected to captain the ICC World XI in the ICC Super Series Test Match between the ICC World XI and Australia in October 2005.
South Africa's tour of Australia, and Australia's subsequent return tour in the 2005/06 season were disappointments for Smith, as they succumbed to a 2-0 defeat in Australia, then a 3-0 whitewash at home. Racial abuse of players in Perth, and media inflammation of comments between Smith and his Australian counterpart Ricky Ponting overshadowed much of the tour.
Pride was salvaged when Smith led from the front in South Africa's famous win over Australia in an One Day International at Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg, on March 12, 2006. Australia set South Africa a world record 434-4 from 50 overs, which was eclipsed by South Africa who achieved 438-9 with a ball to spare. The match still holds a multitude of records, most significantly the highest successful run chase in a One-Day International. Smith played a vital role in setting up the victory. He scored a blazing 90 runs off only 55 balls and was involved in a second wicket partnership of 187 runs with Herschelle Gibbs. He has also had success in partnership with Gibbs in Test cricket, sharing stands of over 300 with him three times. They are the only pair in Test cricket to have done this.
On the 3rd of January 2007 against India at Cape Town, Smith brought up his 4000th Test run. He is the second youngest player in Test history to reach the milestone at 25 years and 336 days behind Sachin Tendulkar (24 years and 224 days).^[2]
In the 1st ODI against Pakistan on the 4th of February, Smith hit an over of Naved-ul-Hasan for 27 runs and became the first player in ODI history to hit 6 fours off an over.^[3]
As captain he led the South African cricket team to 17 consecutive undefeated matches in One Day Internationals in 2005. In early 2007 Smith's South Africans replaced Australia on top of the official ICC rankings for ODI cricket, although they have since reverted to second after mixed results in the 2007 ICC World Cup thus far after losing to Australia by 8 wickets.
In the 2007 World Cup he started the tournament with 4 successive 50's, a feat never before achieved by a captain.^[4]

Personality and Controversies

Smith has earned a reputation as a hard-edged cricketer and assertive leader, a combination which is often interpreted by his critics as arrogance. Smith was once accused by West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo of racial abuse, but was cleared of those allegations.^[5] He has however, been punished several times by the International Cricket Council for various infringements, mostly for dissent and slow over rates.^{[6] [7] [8]}
He has a frosty relationship with Australian players as has levelled accusations of arrogance and excessive sledging against their opposition, particularly himself, in the past. Despite this, Smith and the Australian players have a mutual respect for each other, in the knowledge that they are all fierce competitors with a "win at all cost" attitude.
He is also at loggerheads with South African born English star batsman Kevin Pietersen. Smith, who is forever passionate about his nation, considers Pietersen a traitor for abandoning his native country, while Pietersen describes Smith as an "absolute muppet" in his book ''Crossing the Boundary''.^[9] Pietersen is a staunch critic of South Africa's racial quota selection policy, citing it as the reason he left South Africa as a young cricketer.^[10]
Smith has also fallen out with the current England captain Michael Vaughan during the 2004-05 England tour of South Africa over a dispute concerning bad light during the 4th test in Smith's native Johannesburg. In Vaughan's 2nd book ''Calling the Shots'' Vaughan refers to Smith as "the witness".Vaughan lost his entire match fee for the match after the dispute.^[11]

Test Centuries

Graeme Smith's Test Centuries
	Runs	Match	Against	City/Country	Venue	Year
'[1]'	200	3	Bangladesh	East London, South Africa	Buffalo Park	2002
'[2]'	151	8	Pakistan	Cape Town, South Africa	Sahara Park Newlands	2003
'[3]'	277	11	England	Birmingham, England	Edgbaston	2003
'[4]'	259	12	England	London, England	Lord's	2003
'[5]'	132	18	West Indies	Johannesburg, South Africa	Old Wanderers	2003
'[6]'	139	21	West Indies	Centurion, South Africa	SuperSport Park	2004
'[7]'	125 ★	24	New Zealand	Wellington, New Zealand	Basin Reserve	2004
'[8]'	121	34	Zimbabwe	Cape Town, South Africa	Sahara Park Newlands	2005
'[9]'	148	37	West Indies	Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago	Queen's Park Oval	2005
'[10]'	104	38	West Indies	Bridgetown, Barbados	Kensington Oval	2005
'[11]'	126	39	West Indies	St John's, Antigua and Barbuda	Antigua Recreation Ground	2005

One Day International Centuries

Graeme Smith's One Day International Centuries
	Runs	Match	Against	City/Country	Venue	Year
'[1]'	105	59	England	Port Elizabeth, South Africa	Sahara Oval St George's	2005
'[2]'	115 ★	61	England	East London, South Africa	Buffalo Park	2005
'[3]'	117	65	Zimbabwe	Durban, South Africa	Sahara Stadium Kingsmead	2005
'[4]'	103	66	West Indies	Kingston, Jamaica	Sabina Park	2005
'[5]'	134 ★	77	West Indies	Kolkata, India	Eden Gardens	2005
'[6]'	119 ★	87	Australia	Centurion, South Africa	SuperSport Park	2006

References

1. Vaughan applauds England effort
2. Tendulkar and Smith share the spotlight
3. Most Runs in an Over
4. Full length, full reward
5. Hinds fined, but Smith in the clear
6. South Africa fined for slow over-rate
7. Smith fined for dissent
8. Smith banned for four matches
9. Graeme Smith slams Pietersen
10. Quota heart-break for Pietersen
11. Vaughan fined his full match fee

External links

★ Cricinfo profile