So, did he jump or was he pushed?

WHY did he do it? Why did he do it in the middle of a test, a test his team looked set to lose, which would cost them the series, and that against their fiercest rivals?

Why was the announcement made at 21 minutes past 10 on Monday night — a time when most journalists are either asleep or drunk — when Graeme Smith had, apparently, told his men of his decision some four hours previously? Why couldn’t the news have waited until the end of the test, when it would not have become emotional ammunition for the Australians?

Why now? He is only 33 and in better condition than he has been for most of his career, the odd bout of ankle surgery notwithstanding. Like so much about SA cricket, the circumstances of Smith’s retirement make no sense. Except if we do what is not often done for public figures and consider matters from their perspective.

Smith was in his 11th year of putting up with the cares of captaincy. He has nothing left to prove. He has been there, done that and got more T-shirts than he has cupboards in which to keep them.

Smith will never be part of a World Cupwinning team. He will not know the happiness of a home series win against the Aussies. But he has beaten England in England and Australia in Australia. He has not beaten India in India, but who knows when he would have been given the chance given the madness that grips world cricket.

Most importantly, he has welded a sum of parts into a team and led them to the top of the test tree. They are the best side in the world. Smith can’t claim all of that achievement, but he owns a decent chunk of it — bloody well done.

Beyond all that he has found a woman who will have him and they have had two children together. By the standards of elite sportsmen, that is more impressive than anything Smith has done on the field.

He does not need Cricket SA’s (CSA) money. Besides, who can say how much SA’s players will be paid in future, what with the consequences of the drying up of the stream of Indian cash into the game in this country already being felt?

And yet, the rumours swirl — most prominently that Smith was at loggerheads with powerful figures on Cricket SA’s board and their demands for the inclusion in the test XI of Thami Tsolekile and Alviro Petersen.

Regardless of whether that is true, Smith should not have been allowed to stand in the way of those decisions being made.

Selectors select, coaches coach, captains captain, players play. And board members intervene when parts of that process fail. But, this being CSA’s board and this being SA, and all of the questionable history that involves, nothing is guaranteed.

We know Smith has retired. We don’t know why. But we like to think we do.