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***Official*** Australia in South Africa 2018
- Thread starter Spark
- Start date
Marius
International Debutant
True that. We'll behave as well as Aussie crowds, they're known for their decorum and staying on the right side of the LINE.
Granted, he got picked too early in terms of his own development and improved somewhat in his later years.
I wasn't a fan of his field placings, bowling tactics, and general conservatism on field. I can't really speak much about anything other than what I saw and what is statistically quantifiable.
This strategy involved picking Morkel too early who underperformed the guys he was replacing for some time. I don't hold this against him given the alternatives, but it's not a point I'd use in his favour either. You get zero brownie points for recognising the talents of Steyn in my book, and Ntini was the best bowler before Smith was captain.
Sounds like spin status quo post-isolation history to me. I agree that more value was exacted from Harris's bowling than comparable bowlers like Symcox and Boje, but I think that's a primarilly a consequence of Harris being a better bowler. This is akin to attributing the greater impact of their batting to XYZ captain. I'm overstating this though. I think Smith used him well.
This made him a clutch bat in my book, not a great captain. A top bat might be able to achieve this regardless of whether he's a (good) captain. A good captain will never match this if he's not also a good bat.
He won a lot when captaining a great side, and lost a lot when captaining a weak one. On the whole he lost more than he won compared to other recent captains.
Pollock had a win loss ratio of 2.8 to Smith's 1.82. In terms of results, if winning games is the shadow of Hansie, it's not that bad a shadow. If you are referring to something more ethereal, the only things that could remove that are the passage of time or the introduction of a player that was not actually involved in Hansies era. In either case, it's not reflective of Smith's ability as a captain, just when he was introduced to the team/made captain.
All RSA captains have lost a world cup. Smith and Hansie two each. I'm not referring to ODIs though- I'm not sure I've ever tried to formulate an opinion on RSA ODI captains.
The team was falling apart under Pollock, but this was a question of player quality. Captains don't control the talent pool in the country. Pollock began his captaincy with a good talent pool and ended with a poor one. Smith began with little talent to work with and ended with a lot. On the whole, I think they had comparable levels of talent to work with given that Pollocks RSA were pretty talented for most of his run, but Smith's RSA was more talented than anything Pollock had for the back half of his career. I think talent pool is pretty similar for all captains since Wessels in this regard, but Smith lost the most frequently.
He also lost and drew more games than other recent captains. He failed more frequently than anyone else.
In general, Smith started as a tactically very poor captain with poor resources and lost a lot. He ended as a tactically fine captain with good resources who won a lot. I think people have a memory defined by his late career rather than his early one, and skewed by the fact that he won more matches as captain than anyone else, a consequence of having played more matches than anyone else and having done so with (on balance) a very talented team.
How do all of you that are defending him as the best captain account for the fact that he has the worst record? This is my primary argument, but nobody has addressed it.
Gnske
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I have no doubt he would do the dirtiest of things just to have said he played one test match in his life.
StephenZA
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Smith rebuilt a team that had since the Hansie saga (not just because of player quality but because of how and what happened), affected those incumbent players. Pollock captained a series against Aus that went terribly, otherwise half the matches he captained (13) were against WI and SL. Never against Eng and 2 against India..... while he could not help that, it clearly effects his win ratio as captaining in 26 tests against largely weaker opposition.
Smith captained for 109 of his 117 tests won series for the first time in Aus, won in Eng. And captained against the stronger teams more often.... he had some ups and downs, did not do it all alone but Smith was an unbelievably good leader for SA at a time we needed it.
Heboric
International Debutant
I heard Warner wont be playing next test according to Neil Manthorp.
For some reason (and personally I never understood it ) , a lot of South Africans didnt like Smith to talk positively about the team and the players. Every article on the subject and people will be bitching and moaning
For some reason (and personally I never understood it ) , a lot of South Africans didnt like Smith to talk positively about the team and the players. Every article on the subject and people will be bitching and moaning
quincywagstaff
International Debutant
Would think it's a given Warner & Bancroft won't be in the final Test. Wouldn't be surprised if Lehmann is moved on too; hard to start rebuilding the culture as Paine has already alluded to with him still in charge.
S.Kennedy
International Vice-Captain
Well nobody can doubt his Aussie patriotism.
akilana
International 12th Man
Wonder how this is going to affect Warner’s political career.
RSA spent nearly 3 years winning heavily under Pollock after Hansie. More so than under Hansie himself. How is this a team that needs rebuilding, and if you are going to give credit for a post-Hansie rebuild shouldn't the vast majority of the credit lie with Pollock? How many years do you need to say the majority of the rebuild is done? Almost all of the players from Hansie's era were out of the setup either before or just after the start of Smith's captaincy, and this is what hurt Smith's record, not some notion that a post Hansie team couldn't perform, given that they were performing better than ever.
WI were still a top 3 team in 2000.
England were a mediocre team.
Not sure how to rate India, but they were way weaker at that stage than the time since.
Sri Lanka had Vaas, Murali, de Silva, Jayawardene and Sanga in Pollock's time. RSA lost the next 2 series vs Sri Lanka following Pollock under Smith (mostly home vs away tbf).
Everyone lost vs Australia until Australia weakened, particularly Smith (not that I blame him).
Maybe Pollock had an easier run than Smith accounting for all factors like talent, opposition etc. I have no idea. I doubt it's possible to give a definite answer, but if it is it's unlikely to be so definite as to account for the marked difference in win rates. And there is further weight of evidence in the fact that the record is not unique to Pollock- it holds true for all the captains.
SeamUp
International Coach
Mate, Smith was a bloody great captain. His players respected him and played for him and we won test matches. It is easy to say the team won the games but behind any good captain is a good team.
Graeme Smith was responsible for the following :
1) Picking us up after Hansie Gate , Home World Cup Gate under Pollock
2) He formulated our new game plans and team aims to become the most consistent side in the world over a 10 year period due to our away success. He lead the team to be the first team since the West Indies to beat Australia in Australia. Strategy was crucial. He knew when to try stretch the game and then knock the opposition down when it was right.
3) He lead from the front and others followed. The players that played under him keep going back to that.
4) He created the Protea Fire - getting an identity for the new South African teams to play together for and strive for. A team culture.
5) He was a colossus as a player and captain. Through all that he averaged 50 opening the batting for a long time and took almost every catch at slip and we won hence him remaining captain for 100+ tests re-buliding quite a few teams.
We can say at 22 with a slightly weakened test team in-between era's he got a draw in England when Faf similarly lost last year and I am a Faf supporter.
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OverratedSanity
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I personally don't judge captains by win-loss record anyway. I think it's pretty lazy and in most cases, misleading.
I've addressed a couple of these points already. Most of the rest are too subjective to hold conversation on. You believe them to be important in part because you hold a high opinion of him as a captain. I believe them to be unimportant in part because I do not.
Don't you think that the primary job of a captain is to win matches though? Given that everyone else won a higher percentage of games than him, doesn't this lower him in your estimation?
Judging by Trump it will enhance it...More scandals are golden.
You disagree that win-loss percentage is of primary importance, or you think extraneous factors make direct comparison difficult? If so, what are they?
akilana
International 12th Man
He had to learn on the job while leading a bunch of seniors named kallis, pollock, klusenar, boucher, gibbs etc. What he was at the time? 22 or something. He made it his own team only in the late 2000s. It is silly to look at the winning percentage and claim he wasn’t a great leader. He was better than his average or winning percentage tells u.