Cricket South Africa announced on Thursday that Graeme Smith will be returning home after the final Test against Australia at Sydney to improved his chances of recovering from his chronic elbow injury and will thus miss the two T20 internationals and the five ODIs later this month.
As a result Neil McKenzie will remain with the ODI squad in Smith's place to provide some additional experience and expertise in the dressing room as well as back-up batting.
Smith will undergo a new medical process that has not been used in South Africa before of having blood from his arm injected directly into the tear.
“We have decided to send Graeme (Smith) home after (the) Sydney (Test) to give him the best chance of getting ready for the home series,” commented coach Mickey Arthur. “He will have the blood injection as soon as he gets back and we think that by following this course of action as soon as possible after Sydney, we will give him the best possibility opportunity of being fit for the home series.
“It does give us an opportunity with our ODI side. As I have always said, our one-day side is still a work in progress, it is still a young side, and we are giving an opportunity to some younger guys to stake a claim. We are looking to build our one-day side over the next two years which obviously culminates in the next World Cup on the sub-continent in 2011.
“So it will be a slightly younger one-day side. Johan Botha will take over as captain and we will keep another wise head in the dressing room in the form of Neil McKenzie. He will stay as cover in the batting department and we think that is the best route to go.
“It is unfortunate to lose your captain but we need to give him the best opportunity to be ready for the Test series in South Africa.”
Arthur also gave an insight into the pain Smith had had to endure to get through the Test series.
“It is amazing what he has endured. He is four or five cortizone injections down the line. We thought the cortizone was going to work but that is not going to be the case. He has basically been getting by on cortizone since Edgbaston.
“He goes through a huge amount of discomfort and it seems to get a lot worse when he reaches 40 or 50. It almost gets to a point when he can't grip the bat with his top hand any more. He is desperate to play at Sydney and make it a great match for the team and for South Africa. He has a very high pain threshold.”
Arthur said there was no chance that the euphoria of the Test series win or the festivities over the New Year would be allowed to deviate the team from its course.
“We have the opportunity to create a dynasty much like Australia did over the last 12 years and that opportunity starts right here and now. We learned a very valuable lesson when we took our foot off the pedal after we had won the series in England. We lost the Test match at The Oval and then battled to get the momentum back.
“We don't want that to happen again here at Sydney, so it is definitely business as usual.
“Victory would be huge for us. It would be another rung up the ladder if you like. But we are hugely realistic. We still regard Australia highly. They have been the world leaders for a long time and they are going to be there or thereabouts in future. We regard what they have done as a benchmark and we want to take this opportunity and run with it and move forward with it.”
Ashwell Prince had a hit in the nets yesterday but a final decision on his fitness is unlikely to be taken until Friday at the earliest.
He both has to return to full fitness and to have sufficient game preparation time to be considered for selection.
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