Opening batsman Graeme Smith [ Images ] will succeed Shaun Pollock [ Images ] as South African captain, an administrator said on Saturday.

"It's time to get behind the new captain, Graeme Smith," Logan [ Images ] Naidoo told South African television.

Naidoo is president of the KwaZulu-Natal [ Images ] Cricket Union and a member of the United Cricket Board general council.

Pollock was sacked on Saturday after the host nation failed to get past the first round of the World Cup.

Smith, 22, has played just eight Tests, none of them outside South Africa [ Images ]. He was left out of South Africa's original World Cup squad but called up as a replacement for the injured Jonty Rhodes [ Images ].