Smith asks critics to back off
Posted on
January 07, 2012 by
Ken
Captain Graeme Smith on Friday made an emotional plea for critics of the senior players in the South Africa team to back off in the wake of their 10-wicket victory in the third and decisive test against Sri Lanka at Newlands.
South Africa’s victory on Friday gave them their first series win at home in three years, following another humiliating defeat in Durban which led to renewed speculation in some quarters that Smith and his senior lieutenants – all-rounder Jacques Kallis and wicketkeeper Mark Boucher – should step down.
Kallis was the man of the match at Newlands, producing an immense all-round display in his 150th test in which he scored 224, claimed three for 35 to wrap up Sri Lanka’s second innings and took a record-equalling six catches in the match.
Boucher did not bat in Cape Town, but dropped two catches, one of them a sitter, while Smith scored 16 in South Africa’s first innings of 580 for four declared.
“Someone always seems to be on the chopping block, whether it’s Jacques having bad eyes or something else. But we haven’t lost too many tests at home, we’ve just lacked a killer punch and Durban was again a big disappointment for us,” Smith told a news conference after the test.
“There’s no problem with Boucher, it was the first time I’ve seen him drop a catch in ages. He took nearly 10 catches in Pretoria [eight in the first test at Centurion] and everyone was raving. As a gloveman, he’s been excellent for us, ultra-reliable and I think that’s why such a fuss is being made about that one drop. When we go to England, having a reliable wicketkeeper will be crucial.
“As far as my own game goes, I feel I’m batting well, as well as I have in a long time. I got out stupidly here, but the whole summer I’ve battled hard and I scored a hundred against Australia and then a sixty against Sri Lanka,” Smith said.
Smith praised his bowlers for their efforts at Newlands as they bowled Sri Lanka out for 239 and 342, taking 12 wickets on the third day and the remaining eight on Friday.
“That was our best bowling performance of the summer, we bowled well as a unit. Each guy bowled well in his specific spell and created pressure because we worked well together in partnerships,” he said.
Sri Lanka captain Tillakaratne Dilshan blamed his team’s lack of consistency and the domestic structure of cricket in Sri Lanka for the heavy defeat.
“We have to correct our domestic structure. We have just 15 clubs and just six of them are strong. We have promising U19 players but when they come to the clubs, it’s not that strong and then it’s a huge difference when it comes to international cricket. If we get the domestic structure right, we might be able to grow some good cricketers,” Dilshan said.
“Our bowling and batting is also not consistent, that’s the other reason we lost the series. Everyone is talking about a lot of things, but we’re not delivering,” Dilshan, his patience clearly wearing thin, said.
The victory in Durban and Thilan Samaraweera’s performance – he scored a top-class century on Friday to take his series aggregate to 339 runs in three tests – were reasons to be positive, according to Dilshan.
“Thilan was important for the middle-order, with his experience. He batted really well, he put up a good fight.
“Our win in Durban was also a huge thing for Sri Lankan cricket because everyone thought that we couldn’t win a test here or take 20 wickets after Muttiah Muralitharan retired.
“So those are positives for us to continue, to take forward,” Dilshan said.