Graeme Smith is the greatest captain ever, says Gary Kirsten

Former South Africa coach Gary Kirsten (L) feels Graeme Smith is the greatest test captain ever.

Former South Africa coach Gary Kirsten has hailed Graeme Smith as the greatest Test captain in cricket history.

“Is he the greatest captain ever in Test match cricket? In my view he must be,” Kirsten told ESPNcricinfo.com. “I don’t think anyone had led as long. We know that. He has taken South Africa to great heights. The kind of success he has had, the kind of success he has taken South African cricket to, I would argue that he is the best captain that has ever lived.”

Smith has captained South Africa in a total of 109 matches, the most in the history of Test cricket.

“For Graeme to end up with an average above 48 and then to have the type of leadership success he did have is absolutely a massive achievement.”

“You look at his record in the fourth innings and his ability to make important contributions. That gave the team a lot of confidence. It gives your team a lot of comfort to know that the captain is walking the talk,” Kirsten added.

Kirsten played the final four test series of his career under Smith. “Having played under him, which I really enjoyed even though he was a young captain at the time, I felt he was believable to me. He had credibility in my eyes. Because I knew he would front up to difficult situations.”

Kirsten insists that Smith already had all the leadership qualities needed before Kirsten took charge of the team as their head coach.

“By that stage he had learned a lot about leadership. We always had a good connection and we had an enormous amount of fun over the two-year period we were together leading the team. We were able to tweak a few things and take the performance to even greater levels. We both believed that South Africa could become the No. 1 team in the world,” he concluded.