/ 7 June 1999

DONALD BLAMES THE VICTIMS

ENGLAND’S early exit from the cricket World Cup was due as much to India’s fans as to their own blunders, South African pace bowler Allan Donald said on Wednesday. “It was like Calcutta out there and England couldn’t handle the pressure,” Donald said. England lost to Mohammad Azharuddin’s side by 63 runs after a batting collapse at Edgbaston on Sunday. Most of the 17000 sell-out crowd were India fans. Donald added: “Graeme Hick is an unbelievably good player but you could see from the look on his face that he was done for before he took guard.” Donald, whose South Africans are leading contenders for the title alongside Pakistan, added that England had contributed to their own downfall with a series of bad errors. He said Alec Stewart was wrong to put India in at Edgbaston, where Donald has played many years for Warwickshire, as the pitch changed for the worse in the second innings