 Smith was one of several contentious final day dismissals |
South Africa captain Graeme Smith had no excuses after his team were not quite able to prevent a 112-run Australia victory in Durban. There were less than eight overs to go when the tourists wrapped up the series but Smith said: "Australia played better than us and probably deserve it.
"Shane (Warne) was always going to be important with the ball turning and he bowled superbly and won the game.
"Hopefully we can improve in the final Test in Johannesburg on Friday."
After winning the one-day campaign in spectacular style with a world record score of 438-9, Smith admitted that his team have failed to deliver in the Test series.
"It's been a tough couple of months," he admitted. "We played really good cricket in the one-day series but we haven't played the kind of Test cricket here that we wanted to and Australia have been better than us."
Stand-in Australia captain Adam Gilchrist paid tribute to legendary spinner Warne, whose 6-86 inspired victory on the final day.
"Even though we couldn't bowl our quicks because of the light we had the best there's ever been to fall back on, and it was a tremendous effort by Warney," said Gilchrist, who marshalled the side on the final day after Ricky Ponting was taken ill.
"It was tense but we still felt like we had enough deliveries left in the day to achieve it."
Gilchrist also saluted Ponting, who equalled and then passed Sir Donald Bradman's 29 Test centuries.
"He is one of the best we'll ever see," the wicketkeeper enthused.
"He can adapt to slow pitches like on day one and score a hundred, then he comes out in the second innings when the wicket was playing better and scores a much faster hundred, playing to what the game needed."
Man-of-the-match Warne was in jubilant mood after claiming the 34th five-wicket haul of his illustrious career.
"I thought it was a fantastic Test match," he said.
"South Africa showed a lot of fight, Mark Boucher with his fighting fifty played very well.
"It was hard fought but played in the right spirit, with a lot of character from both sides. It was a great exhibition of skill by all the players but in the end we probably wanted it a little bit more."
Before the match Warne quipped that he expected to be playing golf well before the scheduled fifth day but he admitted: "It was a five-day Test match, how it should be and we played quality, patient hard-fought cricket."
MMIX
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