"Greg or Graeme?" When Nasser Hussain forgot Graeme Smith's name during the 2003 series

Smith slammed more than 700 runs in that five-match series.

By - 29 May, 2020

Nasser Hussain, who led England for 45 Test matches from 1999 to 2003, had once forgotten the name of former South Africa captain Graeme Smith. It was 2003 when England hosted South Africa for a five-match Test series. 

Speaking about the incident on the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast, Hussain said he was confused between Graeme Smith and Nottinghamshire's Greg Smith.

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“I was at Trent Bridge and I was working for Sky, one of my first gigs actually,” Hussain said. “And some of the Sunday newspaper guys were there and they said: ‘Nas, Nas! Can I have a word with you, you’re the captain’, and they got me into this little room and they said, ‘What about their captain?’, and there was a lad playing for Notts at that stage called Greg Smith.

“‘Yeah, Greg…Graeme…what’s-his-name, is a very fine leader’ and the next day’s headline was ‘You forgot his name’ and then he got 250 in the first Test match and the headline in the paper was ‘You know his name now, Nas’. I might have forgotten his name. Very good player.”

Smith later turned out to be the highest scorer of the series with 714 runs. The series was drawn 2-2 between them.

Later Rob Key also recalled how Hussain dropped Smith early in the innings and the southpaw went on to score a double ton.

But Hussain responded to Key and said, "Don’t think we have to go through every one of my misdemeanors in this." He added, “Yeah, I dropped him at Lord’s. I’m sure that will make the footage of this, he was on 7 or 8 and he made another 250-260. Thanks for bringing it up, Rob. You were playing for Kent U19s at that stage when we were doing that!”

By - 29 May, 2020

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