Leadership is making a huge difference for South Africa’s cricket, at least on the field.

A year ago, Graeme Smith was speaking hopefully about South Africa embarking on an arduous 12-month journey culminating in success in Australia. On a cold, drizzly day in Port Elizabeth, the media conference ahead of the three-Test duel with the West Indies had attracted a grand total of three reporters, such was the lack of interest for what everyone expected would be the one-way traffic of dominance by the Proteas over Chris Gayle’s side.

Still, duty called, and while not trying to disregard the challenge presented by the underdog visitors, the physically imposing captain was talking up the impending contest as a prelude to much tougher assignments in India, England and then that wide brown land of South African frustration, Australia.

Just five days later, all of those grandiose plans appeared to be in ruins after Gayle’s men, spurred on by the inevitable Shivnarine Chanderpaul century, ’Man of the Match’ performances from the now exiled Marlon Samuels and hostility and purpose from the fast bowlers under their new leader, thoroughly outplayed the hosts in handing them a shock 128-run defeat inside four days at St George’s Park.

It beggared belief. South Africa were prohibitive favourites. The West Indies had never before won a Test in that country. In fact, they had lost eight of the nine matches played, all except the first-ever Test there in Johannesburg in 1998, by embarrassingly wide margins.

So less than a week into what was supposed to be a well-planned expedition, the journey looked to be derailed, bringing with it the usual media second-guessing, along with the additional focus on the peculiar South African dilemma of agonising over the racial composition of the squad in a country with mixed feelings on the issue of transformation more than a decade after the first fully democratic general election.

There is almost always much more below the surface in any issue of national importance in any country. But it is tough to think of a nation other than South Africa, given their prolonged and poisonous institution of apartheid, where a very thin crust of decorum masks deeply-held resentment over what is perceived to be the very slow pace of transformation to a level of representation at all levels of public life that is more reflective of the racial mix.

Stand in one position long enough at any cricket venue in South Africa and sooner or later someone comes by muttering something about the perpetuation of injustice, about whites refusing to let go of undeserved privileges, or, more specifically, about Smith being a classic example of the strength of the establishment mafia in that he has been fast-tracked through the system at the expense of more deserving players of colour.

No doubt a stationary white person in the same environment would attract opinions from the other side of the primary divide, which only emphasises just how difficult and, in many ways, thankless a task it must be to take on the responsibility of being cricket captain of South Africa, white or - as it must be in the near future - black or in-between.

Fast-forward a year from that Port Elizabeth stunner and Smith is basking in the glory of a monumental triumph in Perth, the skipper leading the pursuit of 414 in the First Test against Australia with an innings of 108 on the fourth evening that represented at one and the same time the laying of a solid foundation, a confidence-builder for the men who followed him and an emphatic response to opponents preoccupied with pre-match mind games.

This was just one Test of three, and Ricky Ponting’s men will be seeking to redress the balance from Boxing Day in Melbourne, but South Africa’s captain must take enormous credit for what the Proteas have achieved in 2008 in seeking to topple the Aussies from the top rung of the Test cricket ladder.

Just as his 18th and latest Test hundred paved the way for their first victory in more than 14 years in Australia, the big left-hander had put his team back on course against the West Indies with an attacking match-winning 85 in the Second Test in Cape Town before a bludgeoning 147 turned the screws on a deflated and injury-riddled side in the decider in Durban.

Indeed, with that duel at the MCG still to come, the 27-year-old already has six hundreds and four fifties in this calendar year in which they have shared honours over three Tests in India and gotten the better of the English in their own backyard, Smith himself putting the seal on the series triumph with an unbeaten 154 that took South Africa to a target of 281 and an unbeatable 2-0 lead at Edgbaston.

All of this has come in the midst of a sometimes tense and even confrontational off-field environment that has everything to do with race, equality and representation in the shape of a transformation policy by Cricket South Africa that some view as disruptive and undermining, while others see its objectives as absolutely necessary in the wider context of a more equitable South Africa.

To stay focussed on getting the job done on the field in the midst of so many deeper issues that can hardly be dismissed as mere distractions, Graeme Smith has shown the sort of leadership that we yearn for in the Caribbean.

Well, at least our captain is also a big, left-handed opener.