Cronje praises South Africa's committment

For the senior members of The Management team South Africa's impressive performance against the West Indies is seen as a direct backlash to the series defeat in England earlier this year.

While the West Indies mull over their 3-0 drubbing in the five-match test series and with two matches still left to play and the knowledge that either Curtly Ambrose or Courtney Walsh may be missing from the Newlands test, starting on Saturday, South Africa are now looking forward to their first possible 5-0 series triumph since their return from isolation.

Brian Lara his side vanquished by a comfortable nine wickets with a day and almost two sessions to spare, put on yet another brave face and admitted that South Africa were the stronger side.

For Cronje, however, the fruits of victory were developed from the ashes of defeat in England where South Africa, after leading 1-0, lost the last two tests and were stung by some horrendous umpiring decisions at Headingley in Leeds. From that experience Cronje said ``we're a proud team and it (the series defeat) hurt deeply'' and then looked at the coach, Woolmer, who was quick to support his captain with the telling comment ``our performance in this series can be attributed to losing the series in England''.

Looking more than pleased with the performances of the first three tests, he added ``you can say that our success against the West Indies is a backlash to what happened in England.''

He qualified the comment with the view that South Africa had played better than England but had lost because of crucial lapses of form and concentration. Cronje's view about the remain two matches is the same as it was before the series started.

``We still have 10 days of play ahead of us and our approach has not changed. We set our goals and knew we had 25 hard days ahead of us.''

Cronje praised the efforts of the South African players and how the side had developed a ``special character during the hard times'' while pointing out that rejuvenation had started first in Malaysia (the Commonwealth Games) and then Bangladesh (the Wills Trophy).''

Lara on the other hand reflected on how injuries to key players in the first two games of the series had affected their performances.

``But we have to put our defeats and the disappointment of losing this series behind us and think about the series against Australia (at home) and then the World Cup,'' he said.

``We know, however, that we have to perform better in the two remaining matches and get back some of our pride.

``What I want to say, however, we have lost to a highly committed South African side. Their bowling and fielding has been outstanding. It is as simple as that,'' he added.