Cape Town. Impressed by the performance of young players like Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill in the second Test against England, former South Africa captain Graeme Smith said that he too will take inspiration from the IPL (Indian Premier League) and play in every format through the ‘South Africa 20’ league. Want to prepare players who can play. Jaiswal scored a double century in the Visakhapatnam Test against England while Gill scored a century in the second innings to give India a 1-1 lead in the five-match series. Equalized by 1.
Smith, who has been among the most successful players playing in every format, said, Indian cricket has no dearth of talent. IPL had given a platform to the skills of both these players and they were so talented that now they are playing well in Tests also. This former captain, who scored 9265 runs in 117 Tests, 6989 runs in 197 ODIs and 982 runs in 33 T20s for South Africa, said, now talent is coming from many platforms and if you have the skill then you can play in every format. Despite being one of his country’s most successful Test cricketers, Smith believes that T20 is important for the development of the game and making it financially strong.
The commissioner of the ‘Betwe South Africa 20’ league said, I love Test cricket and I want it to remain strong but less countries play this format. T20 cricket is giving the game new spectators, new players and new markets. To strengthen South African cricket, it is also important that our own league acts as this platform. Disappointed with the recent performance of the South African team in Test cricket, which once produced the best Test cricketers, Smith said, it is sad to see this. We have not played good Test cricket for so long. We have good players but the average is not above 40. In our time there were six players whose average was above 50. Smith believes that the real challenge facing Test cricket is not the schedule but the financial structure.
The MCC cricket committee member said, everyone talks about the schedule but the real problem is the financial model. We also talk in the MCC Cricket Committee meetings about what should be the revenue sharing model so that all countries are economically strong enough to want to play Test cricket. Players feel that there is more money in T20 and they give preference to it, which impacts other formats.
Regarding the challenges of ODI cricket, he said, recently India had such a successful World Cup, but the challenge for ODI cricket is that after the World Cup, its place in the calendar is lost. The schedule of bilateral series is a challenge and the national boards will have to look at it. On criticism over South Africa sending a second-rate Test team to tour New Zealand, he said, scheduling will always be a challenge and balance will have to be kept in mind in the future. Our league is only four weeks long and this is the perfect window to achieve our goal of strengthening South African cricket.
Giving the example of IPL, he said, when it started in 2008, no one had imagined that it would become such a big league today. We also want to create the biggest league outside India. I was a part of the Rajasthan Royals team that won the first IPL and that experience was tremendous.” When asked about Indian cricket, he said that even after the retirement of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, India will have no dearth of talent.
He said, Virat and Rohit are the stalwarts of Indian cricket. Indian cricket will always have talent but the day of the retirement of these two will be sad for India. When asked about the future captain of India, Smith, who became the captain at just 22 years, said without taking any name, “It is not easy to captain India. There needs to be someone who can face so much expectations and pressure.” This is a very responsible job.
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