Graeme Smith Best Career and His Great Captaincy For Team-
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| Personal information | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Graeme Craig Smith | |||
| Born | 1 February 1981 Johannesburg, Transvaal Province, South Africa | |||
| Nickname | Biff | |||
| Height | 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) | |||
| Batting style | Left-handed | |||
| Bowling style | Right arm off break | |||
| Role | opener, occasional off spinner, South African captain | |||
| International information | ||||
| National side | South Africa | |||
| Test debut (cap 286) | 8 March 2002 v Australia | |||
| Last Test | 14 February 2010 v India | |||
| ODI debut (cap 68) | 30 March 2002 v Australia | |||
| Last ODI | 29 November 2009 v England | |||
| ODI shirt no. | 15 | |||
| Domestic team information | ||||
| Years | Team | |||
| 1999/2000 | Gauteng | |||
| 2000 | Hampshire Cricket Board | |||
| 2000/01-2003/04 | Western Province | |||
| 2004/05-present | Cape Cobras | |||
| 2005 | Somerset | |||
| 2008-present | Rajasthan Royals (squad no. 15) | |||
| Career statistics | ||||
| Competition | Test | FC | ODIs | LA |
| Matches | 83 | 120 | 149 | 205 |
| Runs scored | 6,799 | 9,750 | 5,613 | 7,830 |
| Batting average | 49.99 | 50.51 | 40.67 | 41.87 |
| 100s/50s | 20/26 | 28/36 | 8/41 | 12/60 |
| Top score | 277 | 311 | 141 | 141 |
| Balls bowled | 1,319 | 1,687 | 1,026 | 1,968 |
| Wickets | 8 | 11 | 18 | 47 |
| Bowling average | 100.12 | 95.27 | 52.83 | 38.21 |
| 5 wickets in innings | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 10 wickets in match | 0 | 0 | n/a | n/a |
| Best bowling | 2/145 | 2/145 | 3/30 | 3/30 |
| Catches/stumpings | 112/– | 167/– | 77/– | 105/– |
Source: CricketArchive, 5 December 2009 | ||||
Graeme Craig Smith (born 1 February 1981 in Johannesburg, Transvaal Province, South Africa) is a South African cricketer, and the current captain of the South African cricket team, having succeeded Shaun Pollock after the 2003 Cricket World Cup.
A tall, left-handed opening batsman, on the 2003 South African tour of England he made double centuries in consecutive Test matches: 277 at Edgbaston, and 259 at Lord's. The 259 is the highest score made at Lord's by a foreign player.
Known for the success of his opening partnership with Herschelle Gibbs, South Africa's most prolific ever opening partnership, Smith has the distinction of having been part of all four of South Africa's opening partnerships of over 300 runs: in three of them he was partnered by Gibbs, and in 2008 Smith added 415 for the first wicket with Neil McKenzie against Bangladesh, a world record opening partnership.
International career-
In the first ODI against Pakistan on February 4, 2007, Smith hit an over bowled by Naved-ul-Hasan for 27 runs, and became the first player in ODI history to hit six fours off an over; Smith scored 72 from 47 balls as South Africa totalled 392–6, the highest ODI total ever made against a Test nation (excluding Zimbabwe) apart from the two innings of the aforementioned Wanderers match between Australia and South Africa. As captain he led the South African cricket team through 20 consecutive undefeated matches in One Day Internationals in 2005. In early 2007 Smith's South Africans replaced Australia on top of the official ICC rankings for ODI cricket but returned to second place after mixed results in the 2007 ICC World Cup thus far after losing to Australia by eight wickets. In the 2007 World Cup he started the tournament with four successive 50s, a feat never before achieved by a captain.
During the second Test against Bangladesh at Chittagong in begun on February 29, 2008 Smith (who scored 232) and Neil McKenzie (226) put on a world record 415 for the first wicket. The partnership beat the previous first-wicket record of 413 which had been set in 1956 by Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy. They had finished day one with 405 runs on the board which was the most ever put on by a pair in a single day of Test cricket without losing a wicket. The partnership was Smith's fourth opening partnership of over 300 runs, and his sixth of over 200 runs, both Test records.
In scoring 108 in the second innings of the first Test against England at Lord's in 2008, Smith participated in a seventh double-century opening partnership, again in conjunction with McKenzie, as South Africa fought to draw a Test which appeared lost. He also scored a second-innings 154 not out in the third Test at Edgbaston, to lead South Africa to a challenging target of 281, and with it South Africa's first series victory in England since 1965. The result provided Smith with personal vengeance against Michael Vaughan for denying South Africa a series victory in England in 2003 and defeating South Africa at home in 2004–5; Vaughan resigned as captain of England after the Edgbaston match, in an echo of Nasser Hussain's resignation at the instigation of Smith's batting five years earlier.
South Africa would later on go to Australia for a test and one day series that was billed as the 'heavyweight' series. It was the world champions Australia taking on the number two side South Africa with the series winner becoming world champions. In the first test match at Perth, South Africa chased down 414 runs with 6 wickets in hand. This was the second largest fourth innings total that was chased down in history and the highest on Australian soil. Graeme Smith broke his Australian hoodoo by leading from the front and scoring 108, his first century against Australia. He would also share a partnership with Hashim Amla.
In December 2008 he captained the first South African side that won a test series against Australia on their soil, in the course inflicting the first home defeat on the opponents in 16 years.
On 18th August 2010 Smith announced that he was to surrender the captaincy of the Twenty20International South African team in order to extend his international career. He also announced that he is to give up the ODI captaincy after the 2011 Cricket World Cup.
Images for graeme smith-
International cricket centuries-
Test centuries:
Graeme Smith's Test Centuries
Runs Match Against Country Venue/City Year [1] 200 3 Bangladesh
South Africa
Buffalo Park, East London 2002 [2] 151 8 Pakistan
Newlands Cricket Ground, Cape Town 2003 [3] 277 11 England
Edgbaston, Birmingham 2003 [4] 259 12 Lord's, London 2003 [5] 132 18 West Indies
New Wanderers, Johannesburg 2003 [6] 139 21 SuperSport Park, Centurion 2004 [7] 125* 24 New Zealand
Basin Reserve, Wellington 2004 [8] 121 34 Zimbabwe
Newlands Cricket Ground, Cape Town 2005 [9] 148 37 Trinidad and Tobago
Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain 2005 [10] 104 38 Barbados
Kensington Oval, Bridgetown 2005 [11] 126 39 Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua Recreation Ground, St. John's 2005 [12] 133 56 Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore 2007 [13] 147 61 Sahara Stadium Kingsmead, Durban 2008 [14] 232 63 Chittagong Divisional Stadium, Chittagong 2008 [15] 107 67 Lord's, London 2008 [16] 154* 69 Edgbaston, Birmingham 2008 [17] 157 71 OUTsurance Oval, Bloemfontein 2008 [18] 108 73 Australia
WACA Ground, Perth 2008 [19] 183 80 Newlands Cricket Ground, Cape Town 2010 [20] 105 81 Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg 2010 [21] 132 85 Saint Kitts and Nevis
Warner Park, Basseterre 2010 [22] 100 86 United Arab Emirates
DSC Cricket Stadium, Dubai 2010 One Day International centuries-
'Graeme Smith's One Day International Centuries'
Runs Match Against City/Country Venue Year [1] 105 59 Sahara Oval St George's, Port Elizabeth 2005 [2] 115* 61 Buffalo Park, East London 2005 [3] 117 65 Sahara Stadium Kingsmead, Durban 2005 [4] 103 66 Jamaica
Sabina Park, Kingston 2005 [5] 134* 77 India
Eden Gardens, Kolkata 2005 [6] 119* 87 SuperSport Park, Centurion 2006 [7] 103* 131 Chittagong Divisional Stadium, Chittagong 2008 [8] 141 144 SuperSport Park, Centurion 2009
ABU DHABI — South African captain Graeme Smith said he would like to end the tour with a clean sweep in all three formats of the game as they take on Pakistan in the second Test starting from Saturday.
South Africa beat Pakistan in both the Twenty20 matches and took the five-match one-day series 3-2 on the tour shifted to United Arab Emirates because of security fears in Pakistan.
Pakistan escaped with a draw in the first Test in Dubai on Tuesday after Younis Khan notched a fighting unbeaten century and skipper Misbah-ul-Haq scored 76 not out after South Africa set them a challenging 451-run target.
Smith said his team would love to win the second Test -- the first-ever in Abu Dhabi Stadium, which like Dubai has become Pakistan's neutral venue.
"For us it has been a successful tour in terms of the end results and we would love to add Test series to that before playing India," said Smith whose number two Test ranked team hosts number one India next month.
From Wikipedia-
