A year had been a long time for the English cricket team. Beaten by New Zealand in the summer of 1999, England dropped to the bottom of the unofficial world rankings and the start of the new captain/coach partnership of Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher suggested that the road to recovery would be long.
In fairness, the bowling conditions were ideal as England slumped to 2/4 in the opening Test of the series in South Africa. But despite going down to a 2-1 series defeat - the one win coming after the notorious Hansie Cronje declaration in the final match - there were small signs that Hussain was moulding a side in his image.
