Graeme Smith Bat Quotations

I'm a key batter in the side more than anything else, and from my point of view that's disappointing, I've got a lot of starts.

Everyone in the whole team wanted to be positive this morning and go for a win. Cricket itself needs positive games. It doesn't need teams batting out and drawing games.

We backed our bowlers to take a big chunk out of their batting order, and in the first two or three hours we created a lot of chances. But I would have to say the gamble hasn't paid off.

The whole team wanted to be positive and wanted to go for a win. Cricket needs positive games. It doesn't need teams batting out and drawing games. For us, as a team moving forward, we're young and we need to be positive. To set a declaration and to try to go for a win was in our minds the only way to play. The negative option never came in.

We had the ability to bat all day, but credit to Chaminda (Vaas) for showing some of our fast bowlers how to come and do it on these kind of pitches,

It's something we're pretty well prepared for now after coming off the back of the recent battles against Australia. We're tougher for the experience, we're mentally harder now and I think that will be advantageous for us if there is any silly stuff.

Obviously, Jacques gives us another bowling option, and he'll (also) give us a lot of stability somewhere in the batting order.

Sometimes, when you're batting with an injury, it helps you to focus your mind, and I'm hoping that will be the case. The medical staff would rather I waited until the second Test, but I really want to get out there and play.

We thought after having gone through their top order twice in Centurion and with the moisture in the wicket here, we backed ourselves to get a big chunk in their batting order.

Definitely. We're not disappointed with the fact that we got bowled out in the last innings, the disappointing thing for us is that we had opportunities but didn't take them. We always knew that batting last against the two spinners would be difficult but it was in the middle of the game that we lost it.