England confident of series win against South Africa - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

England captain Andrew Strauss is confident that his resurgent team can dismantle one of the most formidable records in world cricket and win the Test series against South Africa at Newlands. To win a series in South Africa, who were ranked the No1 Test team in the world until a few weeks ago when India replaced them by beating Sri Lanka, would be an even more impressive achievement than winning the Ashes last summer. Not that Strauss wants his team to think about that, mind. They got ahead of themselves at Headingley last summer and started talking about winning the Ashes only to come a cropper, the Daily Express reports. Fortunately, they bounced back from defeat in Leeds to clinch the series in the final Test at the Oval, but Strauss has been reminding his players of the Headingley experience ahead of today's third Test. "The lesson we learned from Headingley is not to think like that," said captain Strauss, whose side are again one up with two to play. "We started talking about winning the Ashes that week, about realising our dreams and stuff like that, but we should have been talking about winning the first half hour. "All the talk in the dressing room now is about starting from scratch again and working hard to contest every over. If we do that, then we can get into a position to win later on. Strauss is the only survivor from the last defeat and believes the record will have no impact on his team: "I don't think that matters. We had a poor record against the Aussies at Lord's and it wasn't a hindrance. "I'm the only player who played in the last Newlands Test, so the guys have no fear of the ground and they are just happy to be in Cape Town enjoying the good weather."