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Proteas earn 'hefty' UK scorn
12/07/2008 18:58 - (SA)
Rob Houwing
London - Under local fire already for their less-than-feasting cricket on the first few days of the Lord's Test, South Africa's players are having fun poked at them in the press here on a subject that always riles them: their 'conditioning'.
And it is not coming from the tabloids, either - two trusty broadsheets have led the charge.
Writing in The Guardian, David Hopps, while lauding the epic 199 from England's Ian Bell, suggested his loosest moments "came with a couple of wafts at loopy outswingers from roly-poly (Jacques) Kallis".
That dig will probably not aid the humour of South Africa's veteran kingpin, whose contribution to the Test thus far has been 0-70 and seven.
And award-winning author, former Middlesex and Northern Transvaal seamer and commentator Simon Hughes, in The Daily Telegraph, had a stab of his own.
Hughes, in admiring the unusually sumptuous lunch menu at Lord's for the England players, said: "It's a tactic that seems to have rubbed off on the England players who always seem more relaxed and approachable at Lord's than anywhere else.
"The batsmen, particularly, come to Lord's to fill their stomachs off the field and their boots on it - Bell's hundred was the 32nd by an England player here since the year 2000.
"The mini banquet may have also been part of a secret plan to further destabilise the South Africans, some of whose players are already carrying a bit of excess baggage."
- Sport24
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