Quinton de Kock won't be South Africa's Test captain, confirms Graeme Smith

South Africa are currently without any captain for their Test side as Faf du Plessis stepped down from the position in February this year. Quinton de Kock has been named his successor in the white-ball formats. But Graeme Smith who was appointed as the Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) permanent Director of Cricket on Friday has confirmed that the wicketkeeper-batsman will not overburdened with responsibilities.

The Proteas last played Tests against England at home and lost the four-match series by 3-1 despite winning the opening game. Soon after the series loss, Du Plessis resigned from captaincy amid questions mark over his immediate international future then. However, CSA awarded him annual contract for 2020-21 season to put a full stop to all the speculations.

Moroever, as far as appointing the Test skipper is concerned, CSA has got time on their hands with South Africa not playing any Tests until July-August when they are scheduled to tour the West Indies.

We want keep De Kock fresh, says Graeme Smith

While confirming that Quinton de Kock won’t be named the Test captain, Graeme Smith said that the management doesn’t want him to be overloaded. They also want to keep him fresh and the captaincy of the longest format along with wicket-keeping and batting will be too much for the left-hander according to Smith.

“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. 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,” he was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

But if not De Kock then who? This is the question Graeme Smith is dealing with at the moment. South Africa’s Test team doesn’t boast of many experienced players at the moment and the board is still debating over the next leader in the format. “I can’t tell you who it is going to be. We are in a debate over it. 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,” Smith added.