Mark Smit
9 January 2009
Johannesburg — GRAEME Smith was very miffed with me five years ago when I dared to suggest that actions speak louder than words.
It was before Smith's first tour to England as captain of the national side. The team was at a warm-up camp at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria. At the last media conference before they flew out, Smith read out a statement: a mission statement, a statement of intent.
The team, it said, would do all in its power to get the cricket public of SA back behind it after the debacle of the 2003 World Cup, which had ended for Shaun Pollock's team in the rain at Kingsmead in Durban. The fallout was dramatic. Pollock lost his job as captain, Eric Simons lost his job as coach. Cricket was not the flavour of the month in SA. So Smith, in his youthful zeal, decided that the public needed to hear this mission statement so that they would believe again.
I wrote the next day that it didn't matter how many mission statements the team read out. If they didn't start winning, they wouldn't win back their supporters. I said the only way to get the fans back was to give them something to enthuse about. I sent off the article for editing and thought nothing more about it. A few days later the team was in Ireland, playing a warm-up game before the tour proper started. Smith had batted quite well, so I called the then media relations officer and asked if I could speak to Smith about his knock.
Smith had no intention of doing that. Instead, he told me exactly what he thought of me for saying what I did in my article. He felt I hadn't taken the mission statement seriously and that my negative approach was doing nothing for his team's efforts to win back friends.
I was taken aback. He hadn't been captain for five minutes and already he was telling seasoned cricket correspondents how they should think. The call ended in acrimony. We haven't spoken to each other on the phone since.
Fast forward to last night. Smith returns from Australia to a hero's welcome. His team has beaten Australia 2-1 in Australia -- the first time a South African team has been able to do that. On the way, they recorded victory against England in England, and a draw against India in India -- only after the most disgusting piece of gamesmanship by India (remember that pitch?). All other lesser teams have been swept aside, and Smith's team find themselves with 10 wins out of 11 series, a phenomenal effort.
And guess what? The country loves him and loves his team. Should I be saying "I told you so", or should I be maintaining a dignified silence? I wonder if he remembers that phone call?
The point is that Smith has proved that he is not just an arrogant young bully, full of bluster. He is a giant in world cricket as I speak. His heroism in coming out to bat with a broken hand and a non-functioning elbow, to try to save the last Test in Sydney -- after the series had been won anyway -- is the stuff of fairy tales, of legends.
Australia has saluted him, and those folk do not do that lightly. The world now sees him in a different light. They no longer see the arrogance -- they see a will of steel. They don't hear the boasts -- they see the deeds. Smith has won back the fans by walking the walk, not talking the talk, and that's what it's all about. That's what I was trying to say all those years ago.
Along the way, I have been among Smith's harshest critics, not least because of that phone call that left me angry and disillusioned. I have constantly referred to that sneer that seems to lurk behind the half-smile when he talks to the media. I have pilloried him for what has, at times, seemed like a petty, petulant approach to criticism. I have had a full go every time he has said something that smacks of arrogance.
In short, I have not been a Smith fan -- for reasons that I felt were entirely justified. But I am now; you better believe it.
Smit is chief sports correspondent.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
