Biff and destiny

July 26, 2003 by neil manthorp

Some peo­ple say it is pos­si­ble to make things hap­pen through sheer weight of deter­mi­na­tion, oth­ers say it is des­tiny. In Graeme Smith’s case it is clear­ly a bit of both.

“I’m not daunt­ed by my place in his­to­ry, what­ev­er it turns out to be. Records like youngest cap­tain and high­est score come up in pub quizzes, but I’d pre­fer to be judged on my record as a cap­tain when I’m fin­ished,” Smith says.

‘Biff’ has want­ed to be nation­al cap­tain since he was 13 years old. Through a com­bi­na­tion of sheer will pow­er and a belief in his des­tiny, he got the job just a cou­ple of months after turn­ing 22.

Amaz­ing. But there are oth­er exam­ples of how his deter­mi­na­tion has brought instant results. When Omar Hen­ry informed Graeme that he had been omit­ted from the World Cup squad, the then 21-year-old nar­rowed his eyes and stared straight into the eyes of the nation­al selec­tor. “That’s a mis­take,” Smith said in a cold voice, “and I’m going to show you why.”

A cou­ple of days lat­er, in his next innings, Smith scored 151 against Pak­istan and had just three words for Hen­ry: “I told you.”

“It was eery, awe­some,” recalled Hen­ry at Edg­bas­ton after Smith’s 277. “He said he was going to prove a point and he did. Some peo­ple are just like that, they make things hap­pen. He’s just very rare and special.”

There were 20 good rea­sons for Smith to do some­thing spe­cial dur­ing the first Test, but chief amongst them was his desire to pay trib­ute to Jacques Kallis, some­thing he felt pas­sion­ate­ly strong about. And yet again, he made some­thing happen.

Maybe it’s a one in a mil­lion peo­ple, maybe even less. But it looks like Graeme Smith is a man of des­tiny. But he also wears a base­ball cap back-to-front when he’s off duty, goes to movies and bars with mates who don’t know a thing about crick­et and was watched by his mum and dad rather than a wife or girl­friend at Edgbaston.

When he’s not con­trol­ling the emo­tions of a sport­ing nation and inspir­ing us all to dreams of greater achieve­ment, he’s just a kid with a life to live and fun to be had. For his sake and ours, let’s remem­ber that.