Schalk Burger was named South Africa's second stand-in captain of the season on Tuesday with Victor Matfield ruled out of this weekend's Rugby Championship test against New Zealand with an injury.
Matfield was already filling in for Jean de Villiers, who is still recovering from knee surgery.
Loose forward Burger has been capped 76 times for the Springboks, and overcame a series of injuries and bacterial meningitis to return to the national team. Doctors had at one point feared for Burger's life when he contracted bacterial meningitis during surgery on an injury in 2013.
Coach Heyneke Meyer said that Burger would fill in for lock Matfield in the "short term."
"In my eyes, the captaincy is very important and something I never take lightly or want to cheapen," Meyer said. "Schalk's character and the fact that he has been a role model for so many through the years made this an easy decision."
Matfield hurt his hamstring in South Africa's narrow loss to Australia in the first round of the Rugby Championship on Saturday, and although the Springboks didn't say how long Matfield would be out, they said the injury wouldn't threaten the veteran lock's participation in the World Cup in September and October.
However, De Villiers, South Africa's regular captain, is not assured of his place at the World Cup after only recently returning to play his first games at any level in seven months after his serious knee injury.
Burger is a 2007 World Cup winner and a former world player of the year. Normally a flanker, he filled in at No. 8 for South Africa against Australia in Brisbane because of a string of other injuries in the loose forward ranks. He was one of South Africa's best players in the game.
Burger will win his 77th cap against world champion New Zealand on Saturday in Johannesburg, lifting him into the top 10 in the Springboks' list of most capped players.
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