So good they named him twice? Perhaps not yet, but Jon-Jon Smuts is an aggressive, clean-hitting opening batsman who has made a name as one of the most entertaining cricketers to watch in shorter formats. He has been a cricketer since he could see over the top of a pair of pads at the age of six, he is unusual in that he opens the batting in all three formats, and he is no mean left-arm spinner. Smuts was part of the South African squad that reached the semi-finals of the Under-19 World Cup against Pakistan in Sri Lanka in 2007-08. In fact, it was Smuts' 58 - which earned him Man-of-the-Match honours - that put the South Africans in the final, which they lost to India. Smuts was also in the South African squad that won the 2010 Emerging Players Tournament in Australia.
But it took Smuts several seasons before he was able to break through at the highest level. Despite finishing fifth in the first-class competition's batting charts in the 2011-12 season, when he averaged 43.64, Smuts positioned himself more as a limited-overs cricketer. He was third among run-scorers in the 2014-15 season's one-day cup, scoring 592 runs at 59.20 with six fifties to his name. His reputation for big hitting earned him a CPL contract in 2016. Smuts finished as the leading run-scorer in South Africa's domestic T20 competition in the 2016-17 season and was finally selected in South Africa's T20 squad to play Sri Lanka in three matches in January 2017.
ESPNcricinfo staff