Graeme Smith, South Africa's newly-appointed director of cricket, on Friday, said that Quinton de Kock won't be the nation's Test captain as he doesn't want to overburden the wicketkeeper-batsman who is also the captain of the limited-overs team. Smith's statement came despite South Africa not having a clear candidate for the post.
De Kock was announced as South Africa's white-ball captain in January as he succeeded Faf du Plessis. The latter had earlier stepped down from Test captaincy although making himself available as a player. With South Africa not scheduled to play any Test match before a tour to West Indies in July-August, they have some thinking to do over the Test team.
"The one thing I can confirm is that Quinton will be our white-ball captain and he won't be the Test captain going forward," Smith said. "We want to keep Quinton fresh and playing well. I've always believed, having been in the job myself, that captaining all three formats is challenging. We've seen a number of nations trying to figure out what's best and I think across three formats, it probably doesn't work."
Among Test playing nations, only New Zealand and India have same captain across formats. South Africa too was part of the list until this summer. In fact, after Smith's captaincy and after some part of AB de Villiers' captaincy, South Africa had multiple captains before du Plessis became their only captain across formats starting 2017.
"From a workload and mental capacity, we felt that to burden him with all three formats wouldn't be beneficial for us. And with the style of personality and player that he is, we want to keep him as expressive as possible," Smith said.
Then who will be South Africa's new Test captain?
"I can't tell you who it is going to be. We are in a debate over it," Smith said. "There's no one person that you could pinpoint right now and say that's the guy. There's still a lot of players that are vying for selection and I think it is the challenge we sit with at the moment. There's a lot of players on a similar level."
"We've got to understand the personalities, look at the people and maybe take a risk on someone potentially and back them," he said. "Coming from a person who a risk was taken on, it is something we would consider."
