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Graeme Smith

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For other people named Graeme Smith, see Graeme Smith (disambiguation).
Graeme Smith
Source: [1], March 27 2007

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. He is a tall and strongly built left handed opening batsman who is usually very aggressive at the crease. He is also an occasional off spin bowler with the ability to take wickets and has shown an ability to contain batsmen with low full tosses at the death in ODI matches.

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 dayer for them. He was unsuccessful in the Tests, only managing one fifty but managed 5 half century's 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, displaying strong character and mental strength in the match by scoring a 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 Stadium, and 259 at Lord's Cricket Ground. 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" [2].

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.

Despite receiving much criticism when he was initially chosen to captain South Africa, Smith has since earned the respect and recognition of the international cricketing community. This was shown 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.

He 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. South Africa beat Australia by achieving the highest score ever recorded in an ODI, 438-9. 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). [3].

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.[4]

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 offical ICC rankings for ODI cricket.

Personality and Controversies

Smith has earned a reputation as a hard-edged cricketer with a penchant for stating his mind and a tendency towards arrogance. However, this is more confidence than anything and he plays the game with a lot of passion. Smith was also once accused by West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo of racial abuse, but was cleared of those allegations. He has, however, been on the receiving end of fines from the International Cricket Council for various infringements.


Graeme Smith's career performance graph.


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