Smith hits out at quality of pitches

Despite winning the first Test with plenty to spare, Graeme Smith, the South Africa captain, has criticised the pitch at the Wanderers, and the standard of wickets in general in South Africa.

"Wickets around the country are becoming poorer. In the last two years it's become more difficult to find decent Test wickets in South Africa. If we're going to take our game forward we need to take note of those things. I think it's important that we have really good wickets so that our young players can really learn to bowl on a good pitch."

Smith had a tough call to make at the start of the game, and his decision to bat first was initially questioned as South Africa stumbled to 226 in their first innings. However, New Zealand managed just 118 in reply, and the second innings of both teams turned out to be largely one-way traffic.

"We knew it was going to be difficult batting first in the overhead conditions and the wicket being a little damp on day one," Smith said after the game. "We knew it would do a bit, but we also knew it would be very tough at the back end of the match to bat. We would have liked something around 300, but 220 was a solid base, and then obviously we had to bowl well, and we did bowl really well."

The leader of the bowling attack was Dale Steyn, who exploited the conditions superbly, taking five wickets in each innings to win the Man-of-the-Match award. Smith had plenty of good words for him and the other bowlers.

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