Let's get one thing straight here - Graeme Smith is not perfect. But Graeme Smith is the best captain we've got in this country. Keep him in the job and let him learn from this disappointing World Cup campaign. Keep him in the job, but please give him a mentor. Keep Smith in the job and let this mentor teach him when to shut his trap... and when to open it.

Nice guy or not, love him or hate him; Mickey Arthur is not the mentor that Smith needs. He needs a respected cricketing figure, somebody who has been there and done it before - I have mentioned Duncan Fletcher already in a previous column - and somebody who can take the pressure off his skipper, which could help keep his rather large feet out of his slightly larger mouth.

Yes, Smith has his detractors - most notably the likes of Kepler Wessels and Fanie de Villiers - and it is an open secret that the SA skipper and former caretaker coach Ray Jennings did not get along too well, but the powers that be at Cricket South Africa (CSA) favoured captain over coach back then and they need to do exactly that this time around. (Also one more thing; my mom does not like the way you chew gum Smithy - close your mouth, son!)

From a batting point of view - that semi-final shocker aside - Smith had a superb World Cup, becoming the first-ever captain to score four successive World Cup fifties. As far as his actually captaincy is concerned, well, he made some good decisions and he made some poor ones, too.

Remember, however, you are only as good as your team around you; just look at Ricky Ponting after the 2005 Ashes. Ponting found himself under the whip after losing the urn in England - the first time Australia had lost the Ashes in 18 years - but just over 18 months later he is on the verge of winning a second successive World Cup, having also presided over a 5-0 Ashes whitewash. Look, then, at Michael Vaughan - an Ashes hero in 2005, injured in 2006/07 for the defence, and then deemed a "liability" with the bat after yet another failed World Cup campaign. Honestly, is Vaughan that bad a captain? Is Ponting now the world's best? Also, ask yourself this; would Ponting - and before him Steve Waugh and Allan Border - have achieved so much without the likes of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath?

Many believe that Stephen Fleming is the best captain in the world. Before the World Cup, the Black Caps were rated as serious contenders because of Fleming's captaincy and the presence of world-beaters like Jacob Oram, Daniel Vettori and Shane Bond. But just because Fleming failed to bring home the World Cup trophy does not suddenly make him a bad captain. New Zealand had a bad day at the office against Sri Lanka in the semi-finals - it is as simple as that. For the record, Fleming captained New Zealand in 218 One-Day Internationals before stepping down; winning 98 and losing 106 - hardly record-breaking stuff after 10 years in the job. (Compare that to Smith's current ODI captaincy record of played 91, won 50, lost 35, tied one and five no-results or Hansie Cronjé's 99 wins from 138 ODIs as captain.)

Don't get me wrong here; Smith is not the finished article (in fact, he is far from it), and he should be held accountable, to a degree, for SA's semi-final loss to Australia. But he is also worth persevering with. At just 26 he has been forced to deal with some pretty tough scenarios. Find him a world-class spinner, an out-and-out paceman and a strong-willed coach who is prepared to listen to his skipper. Then watch him go.

But Graeme, do us all a favour; choose your words carefully from now on and don't be scared to take advice from even your harshest critics - and that includes the likes of Kepler Wessels and Fanie de Villiers, not forgetting Messrs Ponting, Vaughan and Fleming either. They have been there and done it, well most of it; whereas you are just four years into your job, a job that not many people would have done better than you at the relatively tender age of 22.

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