Durban: England skipper Andrew Strauss hailed his team’s emphatic win by an innings and 98 runs in the second test against South Africa, calling it one of the best performances by any England team ever.

“It’s not far off the best performance I’ve seen by an England team,” said Strauss. “Away from home, that’s as emphatic as we have been. Pretty much the whole match we’ve done what we wanted to do.”

Off-spinner Graeme Swann bagged his second consecutive Man of the Match award, finishing with figures of five for 54 in the second innings with match figures of nine for 164. England needed just 18 overs on the final day to complete a win which gave them a 1-0 lead in the four-match series.

England’s comprehensive triumph in Durban completes one of their most successful years in test cricket under Strauss’ captaincy, which included an Ashes series win over Australia.

“We’ve come a long way in the last 12 months,” said Strauss. “But we’ve still got a lot of hard work to do.” Strauss said one of the keys to the team’s success was “not getting carried away when we’ve done well.”

He said that they are not going to get carried away with this win, as the win at Durban would count for nothing when the teams square up in the third Test in Cape Town on Sunday. “But we’re in a good position in the series, one up with two to play, and the way we’ve won today gives us a lot of confidence going into Cape Town,” he said.

While Strauss had an immensely successful year, his South African counterpart Graeme Smith has a lot to think about! The Proteas skipper admitted that 2009 had been a let-down after his team won away series against Australia and England in 2008. They lost a home series against Australia and won only one Test out of six during the year.

“We reached a point but we haven’t been able to go to the next level. We need to look at why we haven’t been able to take that step,” he said. Smith said the scale of the Durban defeat was “massively disappointing” and indicated unhappiness with the way the team had prepared.

“We need to be quite precise in terms of the things we need to improve on in terms of training sessions and coaching,” he said.

Meanwhile, Smith was critical of his team’s bowling. “From ball one, we were poor,” he said. “We never found our areas and we weren’t precise enough.”

Asked about the form of fast bowler Makhaya Ntini, who has taken two wickets for 233 runs in the first two Tests, Smith said, “Makhaya would be the first to put his hand up and say he’s disappointed with the way he has bowled. He comes with a lot of experience and he’s performed really well for us over a period of time. We have given him all the support we can behind the scenes. He’s an important cog in our line-up, so we need to look at all those aspects.”

Tagged with: Andrew Strauss, Durban, England, Graeme Smith, Graeme Swann, Makhaya Ntini, South Africa

Related News Headlines

• Swann, Broad propel England to historic win
• Kallis ton revives South Africa
• Swann, Broad run through South African batting
• Fifth ODI washed out by rain, England wins series 2-1
• England prepared for a South African backlash
• Pietersen doubtful for tour opener
• England vs. South Africa: A neck and neck affair
• I was not good enough for test cricket on last tour: Swann
• Graeme Swann storms into third position in ICC bowlers’ rankings
• Defiant England hold on to a draw

Cricketain Latest

• ODI fixture: India vs England 2011
• CLT20 revised Schedule
• Issues with Indo-Pak series
• England takes pride in whitewash
• England toy with India bowling
• ENG vs IND 4th test, day 1, STUMPS
• IND vs ENG 3rd test, day 2, STUMPS
• England dominated India again
• Boycott: India played like Bangladesh
• Afridi wants Pak President to intervene