An unenviable captain!

Graeme Smith did not play in many games in the home World Cup in 2003. With just three matches under his belt in the tournament, he is one of the greenhorns of the tournament. But he is also saddled with the responsibility of leading his team's charge as captain and opening batsman.

One of the youngest international captain, the South African cricket board has shown a lot of faith in Smith. Despite some poor results initially, he has been persisted with and the result has been a rise to the top in the ICC ODI Cricket Rankings recently. But that will only add to the pressure of captaincy in the biggest cricket tournament.

Smith, an accomplished left-hand opening batsman, has been through some tough times of late but has recently come back into form. His last ODI hundred was back in February 2006, more than a year ago, against Australia in a losing cause. But of late, he has shown that he is indeed back in form with some good innings against India and Pakistan.

That South Africa has also won both their recent ODI series convincingly also augurs well for Smith but the two warm-up games they played would have given him sleepless nights! Nonetheless, at 26, Smith has a lot of cricket ahead of him both as batsman and captain. With senior players like Jacques Kallis, Shaun Pollock and Mark Boucher to fall back on for advice, Smith does have a good core of players in the team and despite his age and obvious lack of experience compared to these players, he does command their respect.

The last year or so has not been particularly easy for Smith as a batsman. He is averaging just over 30 and has scored only 704 runs in 26 innings. But his part-time off-spinners are well known as being partnership breakers and he has picked up 10 wickets in the period since January 2006.

Smith is captain of a South Africa team that is once again expected to do well, in fact win the World Cup. Based on their world ranking, they are favourites behind Australia. In the past, though, South African teams have been prone to choking and inexplicable lapses in key matches. Can Smith bring some of his mental strength and take this team to where it's never been? Is the title within his grasp?

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