Graeme Smith

-->Graeme Craig Smith (born 1 February 1981 in Johannesburg) became the youngest ever cricketer 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 grew up in Houghton, Johannesburg and was a prolific run scorer in school cricket at the King Edward School in Johannesburg.  He made his Test debut for South Africa in 2002 in Cape Town against Australia.  He displayed strong character and mental strength in that match by scoring a half century. 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. 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.  However, Smith is often regarded as a 'hothead' by some in the cricket world, as he has been known for refusing to acknowledge mistakes, challenging umpire's decisions and receiving fines for dissent.  Smith was also once accused by West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo of racist abuse aimed at Bravo.

Graeme Smith's career performance graph.

Recent achievements

He joined English county Somerset as captain for part of the 2005 season and scored a century in their notable victory over tourists Australia. 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 also captained South Africa in their win over Australia in their One Day Internationals (ODI) series win in a prolific 5th ODI in 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.

External links

• [Cricinfo profile]
• [World Wide Cricket profile on Graeme Smith]

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