The two-one win over South Africa in the five Test series was the most satisfying win he had experienced since taking over as captain of the England cricket team was how England captain Michael Vaughan described his team’s historic victory on Tuesday.
The fifth and final Test ended in a tense draw, but the draw was enough to give England their first victory over South Africa in South Africa for 40 years.
”It’s the best moment since I’ve been captain,” he said.
”We’ve been struggling a bit with our form, and we really had to dig deep. And the most pleasing thing is that we’ve come through it and won. We took a couple of gambles at the Wanderers, and that’s probably where we won the series.
”Our batsmen have done well, but for the bowlers to play five games in these conditions, with the heat, was very demanding physically and mentally. So full credit to Hoggie and Freddy and Jones — it was a great effort. But full credit also to Pollock and Ntini, who kept coming at us.
”You saw Ntini there at the end — he still had some gas left, which was incredible, considering how many overs he’d bowled.”
Vaughan said he thought the difference between the two teams was that they had managed to take the initiative at key times in the series.
He said he thought England’s unbeaten run in 2004 had helped, because they had got into the habit of winning.
”In all the games — apart from the Cape Town game where they dominated completely — there were sessions we had to win in order to win the game, and we managed to win those sessions,” he explained.
He said the last session had been very hard, particularly once England had lost three wickets for 20 runs. ”We initially thought of going for the win, but once we were 20 for three, we had to go back to the drawing board. If they’d got a couple more wickets, they’d have been right there. But when you see Graham Thorpe coming to the crease, with all his experience, you know that you have a fight on.”
Asked about the forthcoming Ashes series, Vaughan said he had to be realistic.
”There’s no doubt that Australia are by far the best cricket side in the world,” he said. ”They have been for years, and they seem to be getting better. We’ll have to be at our very, very best to beat them this summer, but we can certainly play well against them, and put them under some pressure.” – Sapa