England captain Andrew Strauss has admitted that his side is still not good enough to deliver in Test matches following their innings and 74-run defeat by South Africa in the fourth Test.
Though the series ended at 1-1 and England hung on grimly until the end, The Independent quoted Strauss, as saying: "We're not good enough at this stage, that's the simple answer."
"We have shown resilience and we have shown we can be a hard side to beat, which are important attributes to have, but we're not clinical enough and we're not consistent enough and that's been a trait of this team for quite some time now. We need to look at the reasons why that is. Are we adapting to match conditions well enough, are our game plans right for different bowlers? We need to keep improving but there is a lot to be excited about for the future," he added.
England and South Africa were also needlessly embroiled in a fuss over the merits and demerits of the Umpires decision review system after Graeme Smith was given not out to a catch behind on 15 in South Africa's innings and went on to make 105.
So upset was England, that they lodged a formal complaint with the International Cricket Council in which they asked, bizarrely, for their lost referral request to be reinstated.
The ICC has promised a full investigation into the DRS, which, far from failing, was largely effective in the series.
It was certainly unconnected to England being outplayed. The match lasted 209.4 overs, only 91.4 were faced by England in two innings.
"They were three and a half pretty frustrating days for us. When you lose four wickets in the first hour of a Test match it's always going to be hard to drag it back. South Africa never let us back in the game. Steyn and Morkel were excellent on this wicket and we were below par. We didn't play as well as we should have done and it is a disappointing end to the tour,” Strauss said.
Smith said: "We could easily be sitting here 3-1 up. We couldn't deliver the knockout blow in two of the matches but England showed great resilience. But we really dominated this game, and came out deserved winners."
In an aside at England's handling of the DRS row, Smith said, "We felt England spent so much time and energy on that stuff that it really allowed us to focus on our cricket."
