OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 3.45pm.
THE British press has accused the touring England team of raising the white flag after they were handed a series defeat by South Africa on Wednesday.
The South Africans won the fourth Test at Newlands by an innings and 37 runs to take a winning 2-0 lead in the five-test series.
”Today England’s flops plan to visit Mandela’s prison. The Mirror says: Why not leave them there?” was the headline on the London Mirror’s story of the defeat.
”England raise the white flag,” claimed the Times while the Daily Telegraph headline said ”England fail to rise above mediocrity”.
The London Guardian said the England batsmen had been outclassed as ”England capitulated … in the sorriest fashion imaginable”. England collapsed to 126 all out in their second innings after scoring 258 in their first.
The London Sun said Hussain blamed his batsmen for the defeat – ”Shame on you – Nasser launches attack at kamikaze batsmen”
The South African media, meanwhile, condemned the tourists for including only three world-class batsmen in their touring squad, and singled this out as the main reason for their failure.
The Cape Times, under the headline ”Big three could not carry England”, accused the tourists of arrogance after yet another batting collapse led to their defeat in four days.
”England had no right to expect anything other than a series defeat when they decided to come on tour with only three experienced test match batsmen,” wrote respected cricket correspondent Michael Owen-Smith.
”They have been too light in this department from the word go.” The British press and South African captain Hansie Cronje agreed.
”We have always felt that Michael Atherton, Alec Stewart and Nasser Hussain have been the three key England wickets and it has always been our goal to get them out cheaply,” Cronje said.
The South African Press Association labelled England’s performance ”a shocking display matched only by that of ‘neutral’ Sri Lankan umpire BC Cooray who contrived to get just about every call he made wrong”.
”Both sides suffered and although the final tally of poor decisions read South Africa 4, England 1, the tourists possibly suffered most from the solitary blunder that went against them” when captain Nasser Hussain was given out lbw. — Reuters