Graeme Smith: A memoir of magnificent tales

Smith and Gibbs carted the Aussies in pursuit of the peak which hadn’t been pursued before, let alone be conquered. Smith belted a ninety runs from fifty five deliveries, matching Gibbs’ monumental knock of 175, stroke for stroke. The knock should be rated as the Proteas skipper’s best ever in coloured clothing. Not for its numerical magnitude, but for the role it played in encrypting history at the bullring. If ever a ninety deserved to be equated to a whole hundred, this indeed was the day to think beyond mathematical boundaries.

Graeme Smith the player was no ordinary willow wielder by any means. By and far, among his generation’s elite. One doesn’t score back-to-back double centuries as ‘Biff” did in the English voyage of 2003, at drop of a hat. But what defined him, made him ‘the boy wonder’ was the hard-nosed captain, who brought to the coveted profession a brand of patented astuteness, hiding a ruthless soul in a youthful face.

Graeme Smith bids adieu

All of 22 years old, Smith became the pony to drive South African cricket forward, to steer the ship to safe waters from turmoil. His calm demeanour and the ‘young youthful lad’ image was a scabbard hiding the dagger underneath. That captaincy complimented his game instead of crucifying a budding career spoke volumes of the lad who exhibited maturity light years beyond his age, in the battle hardened test cricket cauldron.

Coupling productivity with style and imbibing substance with flaunt, Smith rode his way into the corridors of fame as the Proteas cricketing knight. The rookie became South African cricket’s greatest resplendent. His longevity at the top job remains his greatest credential as well as his biggest accolade. He has presided over the most magnificent of test victories and most adventurous of back door escapades. In a group where victory became a cult and success an omnipresent aura, he taught the team to endure loses, yet not become losers.

A long ten years at the pinnacle. In whites, Smith has led his nation out to the field over a one hundred times, tasting the nectar of success in almost every second game (104 Tests, 51 victories, 27 losses, 26 draws). Boy, isn’t that phenomenal? In a backdrop, where playing a hundred Test matches remains a monumental feat, leading a nation a hundred times stands out as an unsurpassed peak. Like Tendulkar’s hundred hundreds, Bradman’s “Bradmanesque” average, Smith’s hundred tests at the helm is bound to stand the test of time and remain a fort that will in all probability never be breached.

An image which flows into the mind and fills the heart is that of a ‘single handed’ warrior striding out to single handedly save a game for his side. Smith sporting a broken backhand, walking out at number eleven at the SCG in January 2009 remains and will remain an unblemished memory in the years to come.

Broken bones aside, unwavering commitment and unflinching spirit being his allies, Smith the warrior waged a vigil at the crease wielding a lone handed willow to the Aussie pace battalion’s barrage of 90mph bullets. He had almost taken the Proteas to safety, when a Johnson missile breached his single handed defence with home all of ten balls away. South Africa lost the battle, but Smith won the war and conquered hearts.

As Graeme Smith bids farewell, it was only concomitant for the South African juggernaut in Test cricket to end. The winning streak which stretches for a whopping 6 years, during which the Proteas didn’t lose a single test series, began back in 2008-09. I guess, with Smith it was the case of an early rise to the top culminating in an adieu many didn’t anticipate coming at the age of 33.

The body might still be durable for an encounter, but ‘Biff’ feels the mind has run its course. A young family at home with a sick daughter deserves him more. The sailor leaves the ship after a decade long voyage in the tempestuous seas. Amidst all the war cries of an exhilarating tussle between two mighty forces, the atmosphere is as gloomy as it can be, unable to sink in the verity that South African cricket is unlikely to venture into those adventures again, which had, not a diaspora of people, but cricket lovers worldwide cheering like madmen, at the edge of their seats for what seemed an eternity.