"Yeah PlumAccording to Mike he was
What a load of shyte, but one has to take these comments
from where it comes
Mike is incapable of giving
much respect to some legends
of our national sports, which is both sad and childish.
So be it"
Will we ever s ee this kind of accolades coming QDK's way, especially from the foreign media? Only time will tell. My guess is that the chances are fairly slim but let's wait and see.
Graeme Smith: English cricket's biggest foe says farewell
By Sam Sheringham & Stephan Shemilt
BBC Sport
Before the first Test at Edgbaston in 2003, England captain
Nasser Hussain
was so unfamiliar
with his young South Africa counterpart Graeme Smith
that he introduced
him to the match referee as "Greg".
By the end of the match Hussain had been so scarred by the
22-year-old's
brilliance that he
promptly walked out of the job.
Smith's innings of 277 and 85 in Birmingham set a pattern
for his career as
he saved some of his very best performances for tours of
England while
wearing down his opposite numbers in the process.
The Johannesburg-born left-hander, who retired from
international
cricket on Wednesday, followed up his Edgbaston marathon
with another
double hundred at
Lord's and went on to claim a hat-trick of England
captains as both Michael Vaughan in 2008 and Andrew Strauss
in 2012 quit
following series
defeats in which Smith was influential.
Vaughan told BBC Radio 5 live: "He's been a tremendous
player for South
Africa and an
incredible leader.
"Whatever the situation, you always felt he was trying
to grab the initiative
in his way. He would
always take on the best bowler in the opposition."
While England skippers came and went, Smith's longevity has
seen him
captain in a
world-record 109 Test matches - 108 for South Africa and one
for a World XI. Of
the eight men to have led South Africa since their
readmission, he has skippered more Tests than the other
seven put together.
When Smith took the job from Shaun Pollock, he had only
eight Tests to his
name. South Africa had just been knocked out of their home
World Cup in
the first round and
the spectre of Hansie Cronje, who died a year earlier,
still hung over the Proteas.
Though his final series against Australia has ended in
defeat, Smith leaves his
side at the top of the world rankings. They have not lost a
series away from
home in eight years and the loss to Australia - so nearly
avoided by a
Smith-like rearguard on the final day - is only their second
in 26 overall.
"He was very mature for his age when he came into the
team," said Pollock.
"His big
physique created a certain presence in the changing room and on
the field.
"Some criticised him for being brash, but he backed up
his positive attitude
with one great
performance after another.
"Like all great sporting captains, Graeme led from the
front. His own
character enveloped the team and he established a wonderful
rapport
with team-mates. He is not going to be easily
replaced."
Smith's style was to lead from the front. In Test history,
only India's
Sunil Gavaskar has scored more runs opening the batting than
Smith's 9,265.
When South Africa made 414-4 - the second highest run chase
in Test history
- to beat Australia
in Perth in 2008, Smith got a hundred. When the Proteas
stunned the same
opposition with a world-record one-day international chase
of 434 in 2006, Smith set the tone with 90 from 55 balls.
But there wasn't just run-scoring in glorious victory -
there was also bravery
in defeat.
On the 2008-09 tour of Australia, Smith had already taken
South Africa to
their first series win down under when he broke his hand in
the first
innings of the final Test.
On the fifth day, with Australia were closing in on victory,
South Africa lost
their ninth wicket with 8.2 overs remaining. Match over? Not
for Smith.
Even though he was unable to dress himself, the captain
walked out at number
11 in a bid to defy
Mitchell Johnson. He lasted for 17 balls and, when he was
finally bowled by Johnson, there were only five minutes and
10 deliveries left
in the match.
"He went out of his way to make sure he proved to his
team-mates that he
was the leader," said Vaughan.
"He irritated the opposition, including myself, but you
always felt that he was
right in charge of
that unit."
It was presence, as much as technique, that saw Smith force
his way to second
on the list of South
Africa's all-time Test run-scorers, behind Jacques Kallis,
and 12th in the world overall.
With a closed-faced, around-the-front-pad style that was as
unattractive as
the baggy jumper he
often wore, Smith's sheer force of will somehow forced
opposing attacks to
bowl to his strengths.
It was an approach that baffled England more than most. An
average of 56.97
against England was
only bettered by the 69.26 amassed against West Indies.
On his last tour in
2012, Strauss's men even began the first morning of a
Test match with five men on the leg side.
"He always looked so ugly, so terrible, so unpleasing
to the eye," said
former England
off-spinner Graeme Swann. "Yet, he was so hard to bowl
at."
Vaughan, who took over as England captain in between Smith's
twin double
centuries of 2003,
said: "In that series, I think we had about eight meetings
on how to try to get
him out.
"If we bowled straight he would hit us through the
on-side. Did we bowl
wide because he supposedly couldn't play through the
off-side? He still
found a way."
The shock of 33-year-old Smith's retirement now forces South
Africa to
confront a problem that almost reared its head three years
ago.
In 2011, following a World Cup quarter-final defeat by New
Zealand, he
gave up the one-day captaincy and had to be talked out of
quitting the Test
job by coach Gary
Kirsten.
The decision proved a wise one as Smith, in his very next
Test, scored an
unbeaten 101 to help South Africa to an eight-wicket win
over Australia
despite a 188-run first-innings deficit.
Indeed, though his final series against the Baggy Greens has
earned Smith just
45 runs in six
innings, as recently as October he was scoring a match-winning
234 against Pakistan
in Dubai.
Now, the new leader, be it AB de Villiers or Faf du Plessis,
must take the
Proteas forward without Smith and Kallis, who retired in
December.
Between them, they scored 22,554 runs and took 369 catches
in 283 Tests.
Their combined total
of 300 wickets is rounded up by eight from Smith's
mechanical off-breaks.
"They have been stuck in concrete in the slips for so
many years, intimidating
a batsman as you look
behind," said Vaughan.
"Now, whoever ends up being there will not have the
same presence as
Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis."
Although the suddenness of Smith's retirement, after three
days of the
Newlands Test, caught many by surprise, there had been signs
that he was
planning to wind down his career.
Smith married Irish singer Morgan Deane in August 2011 and
was granted Irish
citizenship in January. Four weeks ago he posted photos on
Instagram of his
wife with their two young children at the home in Ireland
with the caption:
