Cricket: The skipper the world can't stand

Graeme Smith

If South African captain Graeme Smith strides to the crease tomorrow wearing a Freddy Krueger mask, he will be no more demonised than he is already.

The darling of the cricket world when he scored twin test double-centuries on a tour to England in 2003 soon became the enfant terrible when it became apparent that his ready smile framed a big mouth with a penchant for big statements.

He has not held back ahead of the Champions Trophy. After a long time out nursing an ankle injury, Smith is back in charge and seemingly back in control, declaring last week that South Africa was favourite to win the trophy.

It's debatable whether Smith deserves the opprobrium. Certainly the Australians - his loudest and most persistent critics - hate him for acting in a hubristic manner most would consider very Australian but it is beyond argument that he has turned unpopularity into an art form not mastered in cricket since Salim Malik and Arjuna Ranatunga. Even one of his recent predecessors, Hansie Cronje, came across as a more sympathetic character (which just goes to show appearances can be deceiving).

Smith's relationship with New Zealand could best be described as 'testy'. The antipathy goes back to 2004 when South Africa visited here. The New Zealanders had become well and truly sick of Smith's voice by the time the teams returned to Eden Park for the fifth of six ODIs.

Stephen Fleming, never the most demonstrative of captains, bawled Smith out as he walked to the wicket. It worked for New Zealand on the day but Smith came back and drew the test series with an epic unbeaten 125 at the Basin reserve and since that day has developed an even tougher approach. If the beast had already spawned pre-Fleming, it mutated further afterwards. Smith said he learned a lot that day. He became even tougher and, opponents will testify, more disagreeable.

"[John] Bracewell is the slimy one," he said on New Zealand's arrival in the Republic last year in reference to the treatment he had received from Fleming in 2004. "He is behind most of these schemes and no doubt he'll have something like it planned for us again."

Hardly words to appease.

Smith's South Africa turned the tables on New Zealand, thrashing them 4-0 in the ODI series and he also successfully got under Fleming's skin to the point where he lost it, dancing after taking a catch at slip in a losing side, mimicking the South African skipper.

But if Smith's relationship with Fleming has been rocky, it's been downright dysfunctional with England captain Michael Vaughan.

During England's ill-tempered tour to South Africa in 2004-05 Vaughan claimed Smith repeatedly called him a "queer" and Andrew Flintoff a "big baby".

"I found it odd and childish, the kind of thing you'd say in the playground," Vaughan said. "I think he came in with a schoolboy-bullying style of captaincy... and I'm not sure some of [South Africa's] senior guys responded well to that."

Smith appeared as a witness against him when he was fined his match fee for talking about the umpires' interpretation of bad light rules during a test in Johannesburg. "I lost my match fee and from that moment on, my relationship with Smith became very frosty."

Smith's response was typical, although hypocritical.

"It is sad when you take things that happen on the field off the field. Sometimes things get said and done out in the middle. We are all playing for our countries and it is tough."

Which is fine but Smith acted contrary to the spirit of this statement when he recalled the abuse he took from Australia when he made his test debut, particularly from Matthew Hayden.

The Australians can't stand him. Shane Warne had Smith in his cross-hairs before they visited South Africa this year. Smith made the 'mistake' of saying Warne was frustrated at not being Australia captain as "he is a real old showman who wants the attention to be focused on him all the time".

Warne pointed to their previous results to target Smith.

"They didn't make the finals of the one-dayers and all Graeme Smith did was say some ridiculous stuff... if he wants to keep making those statements and making a fool of himself, then that's fine."

Also at issue is whether he's a good captain. South Africa are No 2 on the ICC ODI table but just No 6 in tests. His tenure at the head of the ICC World XI that played a 'Super' Series against Australia last summer was predictably disastrous, with talk of some senior players openly refusing his instruction.

Kevin Pietersen perhaps best sums up the attitude of Smith's peers: "It's a waste of my breath even opening my mouth to say hello to the bloke."

But the bloke can bat. With that, nobody can argue.

* Champions Trophy, New Zealand vs South Africa, Mumbai, Sky Sports 1, 9.30pm

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