'I felt sad for him'
Nasser Hussain catches up with the man who not only got rid of him (in 2003), but also Michael Vaughan
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
Nasser Hussain catches up with the man who not only got rid of him (in 2003), but also Michael Vaughan. Speaking to the Daily Mail, Graeme Smith shares his views on Vaughan, and his reaction to Kevin Pietersen's elevation as captain.
He was always a very calm guy, always in control, difficult to break down. I used to think, 'when is he going to snap?' But in this series he was a lot more combative, had a lot of one-on-ones with people and that seemed unusual for him. It was something I hadn't seen before. He always used to make me feel that he was one step ahead of me but in this series he was different.
He also talks of his love-hate relationship with Pietersen.
Look, we don't really know each other that well. It started with the comments he made about South Africa and naturally, as national captain, I would walk into a press conference and his comments would be thrown at me.
Matthew Hoggard pays his tribute to Vaughan and says he wasn't among those people who were shocked by the resignation. In his column, in Times he says Vaughan's 'greatest asset was having the ability to say the right thing at the right time'.
He told me that my role in the side was to stay on the shop floor doing the grafting while the others - Steve Harmison, Simon Jones and Andrew Flintoff - were upstairs in the office taking the wickets. That clarified my role and made me feel content that I was doing a useful job without bowling at 90mph and knocking people's heads off
Kanishkaa Balachandran is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo