Smuts takes the reins at Kingswood College
Kingswood College unveiled Kelly Smuts as their new Head of Cricket and first team coach on Tuesday.
Smuts, who called time on his professional career earlier this year, collected 124 first-class caps from 2009 to 2025. He also featured in 95 List A matches and 61 T20s.
“I’m really excited to be joining Kingswood. I grew up in Grahamstown, so this feels a bit like a homecoming,” Smuts told SuperSport Schools Plus.
He represented Eastern Province in representative cricket and was selected for the South Africa u19 team in 2008. A year later, Smuts debuted for the Dafabet Warriors and went on to spend 10 years with the Division 1 side. He later turned out for the Northern Cape Heat and the SWD Garden Route Badgers.
The 35-year-old confessed to having a passion for coaching from an early age and said he felt he was in his element when he played and coached for clubs in the UK during the South African off-season. However, he doesn’t see himself as only a cricket coach.
Describing how he sees his role at Kingswood, he explained: “I really want to mentor them in life, so that they grow to be good, strong people, as well as good cricketers.”
To achieve that, he hopes to instil four core values: resilience, humility, hard work, and gratitude.
“These four values are really key for me. I think humility and gratitude go together. I want them to be grateful for the opportunity that they’ve been given at Kingswood. These youngsters are at a great school, and the starting point is to be grateful for that,” Smuts said. “I think that there’s always a lot to be grateful for each and every day, so I really want to instil that.
“Hard work and resilience go together, as well. I would like them to be prepared to work hard and be able to stick with it, show resilience. When things don’t go your way and you don’t get it right the first time, keep going, and keep giving it everything.”
In his dual role as the first team coach and Head of Cricket, he has the opportunity of ensuring uniformity in spreading those values and culture across all the Kingswood teams, including in the junior school.
“I’ll also be involved in the running and organisation of cricket in both high school and junior school,” he explained.
Smuts will work hand-in-hand with the Junior School coaches to help develop good cricketers and good cricketing habits from a young age, so that when those players move into the high school they aren’t on the back foot and playing catch-up. His vision aligns with Kingswood’s outlook for the future.
The school wants to grow and develop its cricket programme. But that goal won’t rest solely on Smuts’s shoulders. Kingswood has provided him with a support structure that includes Ryan van Niekerk, the current Netherlands‘ Assistant Coach. He will assist on a consulting basis.
Smuts’ lengthy playing career taught him that sometimes speed isn’t the only way to get things done, and the Kingswood coach is not aiming to revolutionise the system overnight. It is a process. And it will unfold much like some innings during his playing days did, when he needed to spend time in the middle before accelerating the scoring.
“There isn’t a lot of cricket [to be played] in this last school term because of the matric exams and other things. So, this term will be more about settling in and getting to know the cricketers that I’ve got available and see where we’re at,” Smuts said.
