When Smith and Rudolph were archrivals

This is not a column about Graeme Smith. I mean, it's not all about Graeme Smith. It's about Jacques Rudolph, too. Oh alright, it's about Graeme Smith. Tough to write a column about anything else at the moment, to be honest.

For most of the 1990s, from age group to age group, Jacques Rudolph and Graeme Smith played against each other, Rudolph for Northerns and Smith for Transvaal/Gauteng.

Not only were they the best players in their teams, they were both left handers and both captains. To say their rivalry was intense would be accurate, not an exaggeration. In fact, Smith remembers their passion reaching boiling point at one stage:

"At under-19 level we had a little run in. We'd played against each other all the time for years, and then at under-19 level he captained Northerns and I captained Gauteng. It was a pretty heated exchange, my first taste of what can happen when the adrenalin is flowing during a big game. It was the key game of the tournament. We had always got on, and still do, but it was war at the time!"

Adding further spice to the rivalry was the debate surrounding their styles. Rudolph was the craftsman, Smith the labourer. Where Rudolph had finesse, Smith had power. Where Rudolph was prone to a lapse of concentration, Smith would develop lockjaw with the intensity of his concentration.

Two brilliant, young and ambitious cricketers, matching each other run for run. Then, suddenly, one leapt ahead and became national captain. How did the other react? Now here's the point of the story:

Nasser Hussain was ridiculed by a merciless English press for referring to his rival skipper as "Whatsisname" during a media conference ahead of the first Test at Edgbaston. Some people are still reminding him.

When Hussain tamely hooked a Makhaya Ntini bouncer into the air to begin the slide towards an ignominious innings defeat at Lord's on Sunday, Rudolph was fielding at short leg: "Oh, by the way," he said to the dejected, departing ex-England captain. "His name is Graeme. That's with a A, E, M, E.

Bye bye."