Put away the red carpet

When the opposition’s down, kick them, says Graeme Smith, 22-year-old captain of the Proteas.

That’s why South Africa’s youngest captain is so disappointed his team could not finish off England when it mattered most.

But the burly skipper’s enthusiasm and passion rubbed off on a side still down from a disappointing World Cup. His own performances, which threatened at one point to rival those of Donald Bradman, lifted a nation who has not had much to cheer about sportingwise and made them proud to be cricket supporters.

After Lord’s, every time Smith was out, you could feel England’s relief back in South Africa.

On the brink of winning the first series in England since 1965, Smith let the home side off the hook.

‘We have to start performing better under pressure situations if we want to become the best in the world,” Smith says. ‘We have to hammer our opposition into the ground.”

But even after the Oval Test disillusionment, a crowd of supporters showed up at Johannesburg International to show Smith and his team that a 2-2 draw is still a great feat to achieve.

‘It is great to see the passion in the supporters’ eyes once again,” says Smith. ‘That is what we set out to do. We want to make our supporters proud of the team we are. It would have been even better if we could have presented a series win to them.”

Since Smith took over, cricket supporters all over South Africa have been more upbeat. Smith silenced even his harshest critics with magnificent batting performances in the first two tests. His captaincy may have included the odd mistake, but his brand of ruthless decision-making and calculating choices impressed even English diehards such Ian Botham and David Gower.

Smith demonstrated this ruthlessness after he sent back a tired English attack at Lords after lunch, and then declared 10 minutes later. It broke the English, who did not put up much of a fight in their innings.

‘It definitely was ruthless,” admits Smith with a sly smile.

The captain also does not take any nonsense when the opposition is out of line.

Legend goes that when a frustrated James Anderson deliberately threw the ball at Gary Kirsten at Lord’s, an angry Smith asked Anderson if he was trying to throw Kirsten off the field instead of getting him out.

Nasser Hussain, who is not especially fond of Smith (he struggled to get Smith’s name right on quite a few occasions), asked the skipper — who scored 259 in the innings — who the hell he thought he was to dig into Anderson like that.

Smith simply replied: ‘I am the guy you dropped on eight.”

Smith does not make any excuses for his in-your-face captaincy.

Instead he wants his own attitude to rub off on the rest of the side.

‘We need that mentality if we are ever going to dethrone Australia,” says the man who does not for one second doubt that South Africa will become the best in cricket.

Unfortunately Australia sets the tone in international cricket. ‘We have to learn from their immense success. To beat them at the top we will have to perform better in pressure situations, be more consistent, win regularly and build a lot of confidence on and off the field.”

‘When we play the Aussies in two seasons’ time, I believe we will be ready to put up a big fight,” he said.

‘That series will be one of the defining ones in South Africa’s history. It will be good timing for us, because we are planning to build an unbeatable side by that time.”

Smith is not popular with the Aussies after breaking ranks and revealing what was happening on the pitch, especially the men down under’s sledging techniques.

Since that controversial interview, the Australians have been in the spotlight for their aggressive behaviour. Many critics regard the best team in the world as the team also with the worst reputation.

‘They are probably licking their lips for our next encounter,” says Smith. ‘But I’m not losing any sleep.”

He says the days of friendship tours are long past. ‘Touring teams are not being shown the red carpet any more and we should do the same in South Africa.”

‘In England we could have been looked after much better. Many times there was no one to greet us at the airports. Some of the hotels were atrocious — we could hardly move inside the small cubicles they called hotel rooms.”

South Africans have always gone out of their way to accommodate touring teams, says Smith. ‘That has got to change. What goes for one team goes for the other.”

England was disappointing because the team failed at the last hurdle, but it was also a great success, the skipper admitted. ‘It was both sweet and sour. There were many positives from the tour.

‘The records boosted our confidence. We also won over many friends with our conduct both on and off the field.”

Smith had the English journalists eating out of his hand, a feat many other captains have written off as impossible. But Smith’s honesty and good performances made him the darling of Fleet Street.

‘I always tried to speak from my heart. It was a bit more difficult if things went against you, but speaking the truth always went down well with the journalists. Also [communications manager] Gerald de Kock has to carry a lot of the credit for the good relationship we established with the English press.”

This interview was done before the Proteas’ decision to tour Pakistan after all