Hours after being appointed Cricket South Africa’s full-time Director of Cricket for the next two-years, Graeme Smith has confirmed that Quinton de Kock will not be elevated to the captaincy at the Test level.

The experienced wicketkeeper-batsman De Kock was named T20I and ODI captain earlier this year and was expecting to replace Faf du Plessis resigned as Test captain two months ago.

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Well, the former captain made it clear that De Kock would not be South Africa’s next Test captain with Batsmen Temba Bavuma, Aiden Markram and Dean Elgar are the possible candidates for the role.

“He [De Kock] will be our white-ball captain, not Test captain going forward. We want to keep him fresh and playing well,” said Smith citing his multiple responsibilities being white-ball captain, keeper, and key batsman, according to a report in South Africa Cricket Mag.

He further added, “I can’t tell you who it’s going to be. We are in a debate over it. There is no one person you could pinpoint right now and say that’s the guy. There are lots of players vying for selection. When we do play cricket, we will see who escalates themselves.”

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However, the Director hinted that it will be a youngster for the Test captaincy and the CSA may “take a risk on someone and back them”, adding: “We are trying to understand who has the leadership credentials and the respect. This is coming from a person who had a risk taken on then [when Smith was appointed as a young captain], it is something we would consider.”

Smith also said that decisions regarding South Africa’s upcoming limited-overs tour to Sri Lanka and Test tour to West Indies in June and July respectively would be taken soon but there are high chances of both tours to be postponed due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.

However, he was hopeful to host a T20I series against India in August. He signed off, “We are in discussion with the boards of those countries and decisions will have to be made pretty soon. There is a lot of doubts about what the situation will be by then but we are in discussion with the BCCI.”

(With AFP Inputs)