Graeme Smith

Graeme Craig Smith is a professional South African cricketer who plays for the South African national cricket team. He is a left handed batsman and an occasional right arm off spin bowler. He is well known for his attacking style of batting. He is also an excellent fielder.

Smith was a part of the Under 19 South African team which represented South Africa in the U-19 World cup. Smith also plays domestic cricket for a team called as Western Province but is most of the time unavailable due to international matches. He was also a part of the county cricket in which he played for the Somerset cricket county in 2005.

Smith played his first ever international test game against Australia in 2002. He came down at Number 3 and was successful in getting a descent score of 68 runs. In the following test series against Bangladesh he scored a surprising 200 runs in the 3rd test match. In the ODI matches against Bangladesh Smith was appointed as the captain, where he became the youngest South African Captain at the age 22 years.

The 2004 season was very disappointing for the South African team. They went onto loose 2 series of games. South Africa lost to New Zealand in the series by an unexpected 5-1. In the following series with Sri Lanka the team was whitewashed at 5-0.

Although he was regarded as an inexperienced Captain during that period, but the ICC showed faith in his skills and made him the Captain of the ICC World XI team which was playing against Australia in the Super Series Test match. Then again in 2005 South Africa managed to win a Test Series in West Indies where he scored three consecutive centuries in consecutive matches. On 4th February 2007 in an ODI against Pakistan Smith hit Naved-ul-Hasan for six boundaries and became the first player to do so in the history of the game. In December 2008 Graeme Smith Captained the side which won the test series held in Australia and became the team to beat Australia in tests after 16 years on their home soil.

Smith has already retired as a captain of the Twenty20 South African side and will also retire from the same post for One day Internationals after the end of the World Cup 2011.

In 2008 Smith played in the Indian Premier League where he represented the Rajasthan Royals. Recently he has joined the Pune Warriors team where his Captain will be Yuvraj Singh of India.

Career Highlights

Smith is the Youngest Captain for South Africa and was awarded the Wisden Cricketer of the year 2004. Also, he was ranked number 1 in the ICC ODI rankings in 2007.