NEWS
OTHER SPORTS
DIARY
PEOPLE
MATCH REPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
ARCHIVES

England cricketers lambasted

English newspapers were at their most vehement today as they lambasted the nation's cricketers for their series defeat to New Zealand.

England's 83-run defeat yesterday handed a 2-1 series victory to the tourists and put the country that invented the game at the bottom of Wisden's unofficial list of the nine Test-playing nations.

The England players suffered the ignominy of being booed off the pitch at The Oval yesterday after the last seven wickets went down for 39 runs to yet again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Fans who gathered on the outfield for the post-match presentations sang: ''We're so bad it's unbelievable'' and ''We've got the worst team in the world''.

It was the first time in 27 home summer series that no England batsmen managed a century and, coming just two months after the failure to reach the second round of the home World Cup, represented an all-time low.

Today's newspapers were falling over themselves in their attempts to describe the debacle.

''English cricket 1744-1999'' read the front-page headline in the top-selling Sun tabloid, with a picture of a pair of bails ablaze on top of a set of stumps.

The picture, a parody of the original ''Death of English cricket'' after the first home defeat by Australia in 1882 which introduced the concept of ''The Ashes'', was backed up by an R.I.P notice and a two-page obituary.

In a list of 20 things to do with ''The remains of our summer game'', the Sun suggested the outfield at Lord's should be turned into a testing area for genetically modified crops.

The Mirror carried a banner two-page headline quoting former national hero Ian Botham's declaration that he was ''ashamed to be English'' and the Daily Mail described the team as ''Test dummies''.

The broadsheets were no less damning in their condemnation with the Daily Telegraph committing five pages to the issue, including a two-page spread of letters from readers about the current state of the game.

The Independent used a headline quoting chairman of selectors David Graveney, who described England's batting as ''beyond belief.''

The Times, one of few papers to lead with Manchester United's premier league soccer victory over Arsenal, declared: ''Miserable decline of England now complete.''

Most papers had little sympathy for new captain Nasser Hussain, who said after the defeat he was proud of his team.

''Hussein cut a pathetic figure,'' said Chris Lander in The Mirror, while The Mail's Peter Johnson said the skipper's loyalty was ''misplaced and ultimately self-defeating''.

Graveney today said he would not resign and said selection of the squad to tour South Africa later this year, orignally to be announced on Wednesday, would ''probably take a little more time now.''

Tim Lamb, chairman of the English Cricket Board, asked fans to be patient.

''We are not very good in terms of the bit that matters but there were a lot of good things in that game,'' he said on BBC radio.

Praise for the victors was buried deep in the reports, though The Times' cricket correspondent Christopher Martin-Jenkins said: ''Patience, discipline and thoughtfulness came only from New Zealand.''

UNI