South Africa captain Graeme Smith, having seen off one England Test skipper in Nasser Hussain, is now plotting to unsettle the Essex batsman's successor Michael Vaughan.
Hussain, 35, resigned his post on Monday after the drawn first Test of the five-match series at Edgbaston.
He had set himself up for a fall by saying in the build-up that South Africa were "ripe for the taking."
Left-hander Smith's response was to score a national record 277 in a total of 594 for five declared -- South Africa's best Test score against England.
His innings ensured that South Africa were on top throughout as England hung on for a draw.
Not that Smith, at 22 South Africa's youngest-ever captain, was getting carried away.
"Probably we have the psychological advantage, though I don't like talking about it too much, it can come back and bite you," the Western Province batsman explained.
Smith won a good toss on a placid Edgbaston pitch that favoured batsmen and dented the hopes of fast bowlers.
But he and opening partner Herschelle Gibbs (179) made the most of it. And unlike England, Smith could always call on his immediate predecessor Shaun Pollock to give him some much needed control in the field.
New-ball spearhead Pollock took just two wickets in the match but was a constant threat to England's batsmen with his accuracy and Smith said: "Shaun Pollock bowled superbly. People said he had lost pace and passion but I think he was the best bowler in the match. All he needs now is a bit of luck and a few edges."
Hussain's resignation obscured the fact that England struggled to avoid the follow-on, new Test captain Michael Vaughan's impressive 156 notwithstanding.
Meanwhile their bowlers only took nine wickets in the match against a South African team that was without Jacques Kallis, the Proteas' star batsman, who will remain in Cape Town and miss the second Test as well after the death of his father Henry from lung cancer.
Vaughan, who became England's one-day captain after Hussain quit limited overs internationals following the side's first-round exit at the World Cup, has been much praised for his "relaxed" style of leadership.
But all successful Test captains have had a touch of Hussain's self-confessed "backside kicking" approach about them.
They have also had bowlers capable of dismissing sides twice which no captain, however gifted or inspiring, can afford to be without for long.
Vaughan, Test cricket's leading run-scorer last year, is currently the best player in a side which, for Lord's at least, still features Hussain.
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and her Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko finished runners-up in the Wimbledon women's doubles final yesterday, losing 6-3, 2-6, 4-6. The three-set match against Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens of Belgium lasted two hours and 23 minutes. The loss denied 39-year-old Hsieh a chance to claim her 10th Grand Slam title. Although the Taiwanese-Latvian duo trailed 1-3 in the opening set, they rallied with two service breaks to take it 6-3. In the second set, Mertens and Kudermetova raced to a 5-1 lead and wrapped it up 6-2 to even the match. In the final set, Hsieh and
RSS