Graeme Smith: A century to remember

Graeme Smith, the player with a wise and visionary leadership, has an aggressive but if needed very defensive batting technique and a great ability to maintain a calm atmosphere in the dressing. With South Africa’s current unbeaten run of 11 series, Smith has achieved history by captaining 100 Tests. The only playing captain behind him is Indian skipper MS Dhoni, who led 43 Tests for India.

When Graeme Smith made his Test debut in 2002, South Africa was already one of the best teams with Gibbs, Kirsten, Kallis, Boucher, Pollock and Ntini in their side. In his debut match, he made a promising score of 68 runs against the No. 1 Test team Australia. In his very next series against Bangladesh, he scored his first Test ton, scoring 200 runs. Very soon after this, after the 2003 world cup, Shaun Pollock quit captaincy and Smith was announced as the captain in both Test and ODI formats. He became the third youngest Test and second youngest ODI captain of all time. He had played just 8 Tests and 22 ODIs before playing as a captain. In his very first England tour as captain, he scored two consecutive double centuries, scoring 277 and 259 runs in two Tests. His 277 was the highest score by any South African player till Amla broke his record and his 259 is the best individual score at Lord’s by a non-English player.

During his career in the period of 2003 to 2007, Smith managed to lead the South African team through 20 consecutive undefeated matches. His team managed to defeat Australia by 3-2 in ODI series, which also had the ‘438 match’ when they scored 438/9 in 49.5 overs chasing a target of 435. In the Test series against Bangladesh in 2008, Smith (232) and Neil McKenzie (226) made a world record opening partnership of 415 runs, breaking the previous record of 413 runs. During this marathon innings, both players scored 405 runs in a single Test day, without losing any wicket, which is also a record. Now, Smith is the only Test player with more than four 300 runs and six 200 runs opening partnerships.

After the Bangladesh series, in 2008, Smith led South Africa to win a Test series against England after 1965. He defeated Australia on their own soil. In the 2009 series, Smith played a heroic innings even with a broken hand in a desperate attempt to save the Test before he fell ten balls short at the end of the match, the most unselfish innings played by any player for his team. After the exit from the 2011 World Cup, he stepped down as ODI and T20 captaincy but later, he defeated England to put SA on the top position in the Tests.

Currently Smith is the only player to score 20 Test hundreds as a captain – in total he scored 26 centuries. Also, of his 26 centuries, South Africa never lost a match when he scored a ton. Smith also holds the record of scoring 8000 runs in Tests as a captain. For a team to be successful it has to have a good batting and bowling attack and a strong fielding side, but even with all of this, Smith showed the world an example of a perfect captain. It is always difficult to achieve the target as the best Test team in the world and it is more difficult to maintain it; and Smith is doing it with the same consistency for over the last 10 years.