On the 30th of December 2002 I packed my worldly posessions into my newly purchased '98 Citi Golf and drove the Garden Route to Cape Town, leaving my parent's house behind me to start my first job in an unfamiliar city. The car wasn't very full. January 2003 was spent sleeping on the floor of a rented bachelor flat. My first paycheck arrived on the 25th and because the World Cup was around the corner I bought a television and stood it against the wall on top of the box it came in. In February I watched the Proteas knocked out of the tournament, and slept on the floor for another month.
Graeme Smith and I are just about the same age. I remember being struck by this when he was first drafted into the side in 2002. The other cricketers in the national side at the time were clearly older guys than myself. But Smith wasn't. Suddenly growing up didn't seem that far away. Except for my lack of any actual skill at playing the game - a pesky detail that many sports fans must face - I was able to look at him and said to myself "that could be me".
Later in 2003 I remember evenings spent at my flat window, beer can in my hand, looking out over the shadows lengthening over Rondebosch and listening on the radio (or following on cricinfo, I forget) as Smith, now captain, piled up the runs against Nasser "what's-his-name" Hussain's England. The poms burgled a drawn series there, but Smith claimed the first of his three English captain scalps as Hussain resigned.
South African cricketers will always be divided into two groups for me: pre-Smith and post-Smith. Those before him belong to my father's sporting generation. I remember seeing them on TV from the vantage point of his couch or with him in the stands at St Georges Park, watching the isolation era Currie Cup and then later as Kepler and Hansie led the return to international cricket; the memories of scholar and a student. My memories of Proteas cricketers from Smith onwards are from a different city, with different company and part of a different life.
My second last year renting that bachelor flat in Rondebosch was 2006. On the same television, still sitting on it's box, I remember watching the 438 game. Most of the Australian innings was spent not watching the set, but the same can't be said for the three hours after that. Gibbs rightly gets remembered for his batting that day, but Smith's rapid-fire batting first up is what set the pace and made us all believe it was possible. It seldom gets the credit it deserves (and neither does van der Wath's manic 30 in the dying overs of the chase).
I suspect that history will largely remember Graeme Smith for the last five years of his captaincy. The Proteas team that he led from 2008 to 2013 dominated home and away, failing only to bring home any ICC silverware. His record as a batsman will always fall just slightly short of the greats, especially after a year of poor form at the tail end. Despite that he still rates as the greatest opening batsman South Africa has produced. If his feats as a captain outshine those as a batsman it is only because the former are so memorable.
I will remember Smith as the sportsman who divided my childhood from my adulthood. Eleven years after I watched him take Jonty's place in the 2003 World Cup squad, we both have young families and different priorities. The world has moved on from the days of our youth. Good luck and godspeed where ever life takes you from here Graeme. Thanks for all the memories.
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