South Africa were handed a damning innings and 98 run defeat by old enemies England in the second Test match at Durban's Kingsmead Stadium.

The Proteas were comprehensively outclassed, but hopefully this loss is exactly the kind of kick up the backside the team as a whole, management and the players individually need to return the their level of performance for the majority of last season.

Barend Prins rates the Proteas players:

The bowlers:

Makhaya Ntini

Before I start with my rant, let me make it clear that Makhaya has been a wonderful servant to cricket and deserves to be seen in the very upper echelon of South African fast bowlers along the likes of Alan Donald and Shaun Pollock.

It is now however time to look somewhere else. When Pollock was eventually shifted to the edges of the Test, the most common cited reason was his apparent lack of pace. If there is any consistency in the selectors, Durban?s disasterous Test match should spell the end of Ntini?s career for those exact reasons.

Atleast Pollock still had a bit of guile and the ability to bowl straight and to a field. Ntini does not even have that.

It is not Ntini?s fault that the batting collapsed in the way they did, but he should take the brunt of the blame conceding such a big lead, which put that amount of pressure on the batsmen in the first place.

Two specific instances of incredible ineptness immediately spring to mind.

After South Africa posted a very competitive first innings score, Ntini produced one of the worst spells of bowling with the new ball I have ever had the displeasure of watching. Under extremely favourable bowling conditions, his insistence of bowling ?back of a length? gifted Andrew Strauss runs at an alarming rate and handed England vital momentum in a situation their batsmen should arguably have been under immense pressure.

The second was just after Ian Bell strode to the wicket. It is widely accepted that his lack of fighting spirit in pressure situations is largely what is preventing Bell from becoming a top player and a fixture in the England team. With Bell?s arrival at the crease, South Africa still had a lead of around 50 runs, another quick wicket or two would probably have kept the England lead down to a negligible one. Steyn and Morkel were in the middle of a good spell and Bell looked decidedly iffy at the crease. Morkel?s fine spell came to an end and Ntini was brought back into the attack.

His first over in that spell - with Bell facing - was something you?d expect in a charity match or your local pub league. Medium paced half-trackers are deliveries even tail-enders can put to the fence, and Bell is certainly not one of those. A couple of bonus boundaries was gifted to him and he was away and proceeded to take the game away from the home side.

If there was a ?Villain of the match? award, Ntini would win it hands down with his ?performance? in Durban. 0/10.

Dale Steyn

Not his best Test match by a long shot, but one gets the impression he is lacking in match fitness. In an ideal situation, Steyn would have been given a run in a four day game before making his return to the Test team. Unfortunately the SuperSport Series is currently in the middle of a break, and a run-out in a MTN40 game would not have answered any questions on his form. He seemed to get better as the game went on, and should be somewhere near his best in Cape Town. A nice innings with the bat got South Africa out of a bit of trouble as well. 6/10.

Morne Morkel

Answered some of his doubters with another excellent performance and was the best of the South African bowlers by some distance. Seems to have come to grips with his own action as well as rectified his no-ball problems of old. Another good performance should pretty much cement his place in the line-up. Has some potential with the bat as well, if only he could learn to play forward a bit more. 8/10

Paul Harris

His worst match with the ball in some time. Seemed to struggle with the heavy winds at times and never really got any rhythm going. His role in the team is a holding, slightly defensive role when built on his gnawing accuracy, but when he loses that one thing he has going for him, there isn?t much else left in his arsenal. He still got Kevin Pietersen though. 2/10.

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