Former South African captain and commissioner of the newly-minted SA20 league on how to manage crises and lead from the front
Graeme Smith is no stranger to boarding sinking ships and steadying them. At 22, when he took over from Shaun Pollock as the captain of the South African cricket team, it was not only reeling from a shock exit from the 2003 World Cup that it hosted, but also the aftershocks of the match-fixing scandal involving former skipper Hansie Cronje. Smith, a left-handed opening batter and the country’s youngest captain, soon made his mark by scoring double centuries in his 11th and 12th Tests (his third and fourth as captain). By the time he retired from international cricket in 2014, he became the country’s most successful captain across formats and led South Africa to an unbeatable streak in away Tests between 2007 and 2013. Â