Smith the running champ needs to go the distance

In the past 10 months he has had to face a variety of serious challenges and this tour of India is part of that process. Kanpur and the first Test is another milestone on what has been a rocky road. This time he has Omar Henry, convener of the national coaching panel of four, overseeing his performance, as well as new coach Ray Jennings.

But Smith is the man who has to make the tricks work on the field. He can’t bat for everyone but he can lead by example, and that is what an opening batsman tries to do. Smith is young, eager to learn and anxious to apply the lessons; it is what the game is all about and he knows all too well the need to reassess each game.

After Jaipur it is a matter of rallying round the image of the flag and trying to get it back to full mast and not view it from half mast, as they have done most of this year.

New Zealand was tough but at least the Test series was levelled 1-1; in Sri Lanka they were undone by their own impatience at the Sinhalese Sports Club on a pitch with more sideways movement than normal, and let down by wayward bowling. It was also the tour where at one stage a frustrated Smith said the team had batted as badly as a club side.

It probably needed to be said as the Safs were lacking the confidence needed to win games and the 5-0 limited over series defeat was as comprehensive as it was going to be. It was the first tour of the Pearl of the Indian Ocean where South Africa had failed to win a game.

Smith has been through it all and has been growing with each campaign, the way Allan Border did when he reluctantly took over as Australia’s captain and turned out to be a smart thinker as well as a streetwise promoter for Team Australia. South Africa are going through a major transition period and it is up to the players to put it together to be competitive and display the self-belief so missing in Sri Lanka.

As it is the Safs captain has admitted that it needs patience to bat in South Asian conditions. It is where the mind game comes in to how they plan each innings.

Witness the Jacques Rudolph epic at Galle and the importance of patience on that innings. If the team was able to take that as an example of facing a challenge and an inspiration point, there is a psychology about it that can lift the others.

With Jacques Kallis likely missing, Smith may have lost one of his two senior lieutenants and it is a matter of where experience becomes an important factor.

Smith though knows that, as the Safs captain, the challenge of this tour, as short as it is, and squeezed because of the ludicrous demands of the over-crowded Test calendar, is significant as it is a starting point of the team’s new transformation process. It is also where the character and inspirational spirit count.

India is a tougher tour, it offers more challenges but of a different variety than Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka combined. It is too short a venture to be called a tour, yet the implications of team-building are equally important as within the next year, the Safs may find themselves on another visit here to play the limited-over series.

It is where careful selection policy is needed to carry forward what they will learn from this tour.