Graeme Smith Appointed Director Of Cricket By Cricket South Africa For Two Years

The Cricket South Africa (CSA) on Friday extended Graeme Smith's contract as its director of cricket for two years. Smith will now remain with the Proteas until the end of March 2022. In December last year, Smith was appointed as the acting director of cricket until the IPL next year. However, on Thursday, BCCI suspended the IPL till further notice due to ''evolving global health concerns''. "Graeme has made a huge impact with his energy, expertise, hard work ethic and characteristic determination and passion he has brought to the position during the six months he has served in an acting capacity," said CSA Acting Chief Executive Dr Jacques Faul.

"Although there is certainly a great deal of work to be done, as reflected by the performances of our various national teams, he has certainly put our cricket on an upward trajectory that provides light at the end of the tunnel," he added.

Faul explained the number of events that happened during the first short stint of Smith with the CSA.

"He has bought into all the overall pillars of our strategy and that includes the important one of transformation. As far as the technical and support teams he has put together are concerned, the black generic component amounted to more than 70 per cent across the board and the Black African component varied between 30 and 60 per cent for the Standard Bank Proteas for the home international season, for the Momentum Proteas for the ICC Women's T20 World Cup and for the ICC under-19 World Cup, which we were privileged and proud to host," Faul stated further.

"He also made a number of strategic temporary appointments with Linda Zondi appointed interim independent national selector, Ashwell Prince taking charge of South Africa A and Malibongwe Maketa joining the under-19 squad as a coaching consultant," he said. Smith said he was delighted to stay on board to take South African cricket forward.

"My appointment brings a degree of permanency to my position which makes planning the road ahead a lot easier. As Dr Faul has said, there is a lot of work that still needs to be done, not just at the international level but throughout our pipeline development pathways as well. But I am determined to get South African cricket back to where it belongs as one of the world leaders at the international level," Smith said. 

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