Former South African captain Graeme Smith becomes South Africa’s first director of cricket. He has finally accepted for this role temporarily as he has signed a three-month contract.
Cricket South Africa (CSA) has introduced the post of director of cricket after South Africa’s dismal performances in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, where they finished in the seventh position. The board was desperate to see Graeme Smith for this role, and after many talks for several months, Smith has finally accepted for this role.
However, Graeme Smith can’t continue this position for more than three months due to his earlier settled commitment for the next Indian Premier League edition (IPL 2020). Whether he will continue South Africa’s director of cricket post after IPL 2020, will be known later.
Graeme Smith was one of the most successful captains in international cricket history. He is the only cricketer to play as a captain in 100 or more Test matches (109 Tests). Smith led the South African team in 284 international matches.
From 2002 to 2014, Graeme Smith played 117 Tests, 197 ODIs and 33 T20Is where the left-handed batsman scored 9,265 runs, 6,989 runs and 982 runs respectively. The off-break bowler also took eight Test and 18 ODI wickets.
Graeme Smith will majorly work for the men’s national cricket team
Though Graeme Smith has accepted the director of cricket, he will be not available for every role under this post. Due to the short period, Smith will be not involved in the upcoming journeys of the junior and women’s teams.
The South Africa U19 national cricket team will play the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2020 as the host nation between 17th January and 9th February 2020. Meanwhile, ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020 will be run from 21st February to 8th March 2020 in Australia, and South Africa women’s national cricket team will participate in this tournament. However, Smith will be inactive in both these tournaments.
In this short period, Smith will majorly work for the South Africa men’s national cricket team. While England tour of South Africa for the international cricket series will run between 26th December 2019 and 16th February 2020, Smith has to sort out a national selection panel and the coaching staff in an urgent basis.
After accepting this challenging role, Smith said, “I’ve publicly stated a number of times that I would love to assist CSA in this difficult time, particularly in developing this new role of director of cricket. I’m still as passionate about South African cricket as I ever was, and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into the role. There is a lot of work to be done in the next few weeks and months and my objective will always be to make a positive impact during my tenure.”
England will play four Tests, three ODIs and three T20Is against the hosts South Africa in their forthcoming tour.