I’ve never heard a cricket fan say a kind thing about Graeme Smith. He’s arrogant and shouldn’t make himself  an opening batsman, seems to the biggest complaint.  His incessant gum-chewing is an issue and, then when he dehydrated at the World Cup in the Caribbean, there were howls in South African lounges and bars that he was being a being a big fat drama queen.

What gives here? It all seems rather uncharitable, to me.

I have a superficial understanding of cricket but do prefer it to other national sports and  keep half an eye on it. And it seems to me that South African cricket has never been in such good shape.

In the recent Ozzie Test series here and in Australia, we were clearly the best team and I’ve even heard commentators refer to us as "the South African juggernuat" at this 20/20 World Cup. Boy,  was I proud. Since when did we become a juggernuat feared by cricketers and fans around the world? Not so long ago it was the Australians who claimed that space — and did so  for about a decade!

So we crashed out to Pakistan in the semis at the 20/20 World Cup but they were on top form. Their bowling and fielding was superb and, really guys, you can’t win ‘em all. Click here to read Smith’s blog posted today on Standard Bank’s cricket website. 

I think we should be proud of our team and congratulate Mickey Arthur and Smith for bringing us out of the doldrums to a position of sustained strength. Says Ali Mustafa from Lahore at an IOL story about Smith’s blog post: 

Click here to read the IOL story and comments.

Now, if only Bafana Bafana could latch on to a young, arrogant Smith and put him together with a good local coach, and it’ll be the business. I’m filled with such foreboding for Bafana in the Confed Cup that I’ve decided to support Iraq instead though Egypt also rather takes my fancy.

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