LONDON, Aug 28: Jacques Kallis will take over from the injured Graeme Smith as South Africa captain for the third One-day International against England, coach Mickey Arthur said on Thursday.

South Africa need to win Friday’s match at the Oval to keep the series alive after being thrashed by 10 wickets in the second ODI at Trent Bridge on Tuesday but Smith will be absent due to a persistent elbow problem.

“Graeme, from the last Test match and the start of the one day series, has been pretty much playing on borrowed time with his elbow unfortunately,” Arthur told Sky Sports News.

“He tried to battle it out as much as he could but after Trent Bridge we just realised he couldn’t go any more,” he added.

“We are going to rest and rehab Graeme and get him ready for the start of our home series which is Bangladesh in November and then Australia. We need our guys fighting fit for Australia and Graeme needs the time off now.”

Arthur said the captain, who would stay on with the rest of the team, probably should not have played the fourth and final test at the Oval.

“He’s such a hard guy and such a driven person that we kept him going and obviously things didn’t go according to plan. We thought we might get a little cushion and then we could rest him but that hasn’t happened,” he said.

Kallis, South Africa’s highest Test run-getter, looked forward to putting some pressure back on England.

“It’s a sad situation that I’ve come in to but we’ll take the opportunity, it’s something that I have done before and I have enjoyed it,” he said.

“But losing Graeme is a huge loss to the side, you don’t replace guys like that easily.”

Kallis said the team were determined to erase the memory of Trent Bridge.

“We pride ourselves on our performance and we’ve played some good cricket over the last two years,” he said. “And the way of performing in the last two games is nowhere near where we should be performing.”—Reuters