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Journalism of Courage
Nasser Hussain was accused of “losing it” and trying to embarrass South Africa captain Graeme Smith during his last match as England Test captain.
Hussain, 35, resigned the Test captaincy after yesterday’s drawn series opener against the Proteas here at Edgbaston. Smith, at 22 South Africa’s youngest-ever captain and 13 years Hussain’s junior, publicly expressed surprise at his opposite number’s move.
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‘He led with passion, pride’ |
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• After the sweat, the tears as Hussain calls it a day. England’s best cricket captain for more than a quarter of a century has resigned. — The Times |
But sources close to the tourists’ camp said that the Essex batsman’s decision had not come as a a total surprise.
“Nasser lost it totally” the source said here yesterday. “He was swearing at his players in the field.” The source added that Hussain, whose players often felt the rough edge of his tongue in 45 Tests as England captain, tried to put one over on Smith just before the Test began last Thursday.
“When he went out to toss, Hussain introduced Smith to the match referee as ’Greg Smith’. “The (South Africa) team thought it was a deliberate attempt to humiliate him.”
If so it backfired spectacularly with Smith making 277, the highest Test score by a South Africa cricketer, in a first innings total of 594 for five declared – South Africa’s best against England. He followed that up with 85 in the second innings, breaking a 56-year-old South African record for most runs in a Test match.
In the build-up to this match Hussain had angered the tourists by saying there were “splits in their camp” and that South Africa “were ripe for the taking”. At a pre-Edgbaston press conference Hussain, who has been selected purely as a batsman for Thursday’s second Test at Lord’s, was also said to have referred to “what’s his name Smith”.
Smith, who succeeded Shaun Pollock after the Proteas’s first round World Cup exit on home soil earlier this year, dismissed talk of a rift between him and his new-ball spearhead as “first Test propaganda”.
He added that England would have problems of their own with the “two captains” issue after Michael Vaughan, now also England’s Test skipper, had made a success of the one-day leadership following Hussain’s retirement from the shorter international game when England also failed to make it past the first hurdle of the World Cup.
So far, at least, Smith appears to have been proved right.
