Johannesburg, Apr 17: Cricket South Africa (CSA) today announced the appointment of former captain Graeme Smith as its Director of Cricket.
The 39-year-old will initially serve a two-year term until the end of April 2022. Smith had earlier been appointed to the role in an interim capacity for a three-month period in December 2019, giving him little over three months in his role.
”Graeme has made a huge impact with his energy, expertise, hard work ethic and characteristic determination and passion he has brought to the position during the six months he has served in an acting capacity,” said CSA Acting Chief Executive Dr Jacques Faul.
”Although there is certainly a great deal of work to be done, as reflected by the performances of our various national teams, he has certainly put our cricket on an upward trajectory that provides light at the end of the tunnel, ” he added.
Smith captained South Africa in a record 108 Tests between 2003 and 2014. He played in a total of 117 Tests, 197 ODIs and 33 T20s.
“He has bought into all the overall pillars of our strategy and that includes the important one of transformation.(UNI)
As far as the technical and support teams he has put together are concerned, the black generic component amounted to more than 70 percent across the board and the Black African component varied between 30 and 60 percent for the Proteas for the home international season, for the Momentum Proteas for the Women’s T20 World Cup and for the Under-19 World Cup, which we were privileged and proud to host,” explained Faul.
In his interim, Smith, who was brought on board to put South African cricket back on track also made some key appointments.
”He also made a number of strategic temporary appointments with Linda Zondi appointed interim independent national selector, Ashwell Prince taking charge of South Africa A and Malibongwe Maketa joining the under-19 squad as a coaching consultant,” added Dr Faul.
Smith, himself was happy to be serving the board and sounded hopeful that South Africa would soon be “back to where it belongs” at the international level.
Smith said he was delighted to stay on board as part of the team to take South African cricket forward.
”My appointment brings a degree of permanency to my position which makes planning the road ahead a lot easier,” he said.
“As Dr Faul has said, there is a lot of work that still needs to be done, not just at international level but throughout our pipeline development pathways as well but I am determined to get South African cricket back to where it belongs as one of the world leaders at international level,” he concluded. (UNI)
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