Obviously we are right up against it in this Lord’s Test and we have no excuses, we have been outplayed on all three days and it’s up to us to turn it around.

It’s not a great situation that we find ourselves in and though I’m sure it looks to everyone like there can only be one result, we will carry on fighting and try somehow to dig ourselves out of this. England’s general cricket has been more clinical from the first session and we have got to catch up quickly. They have simply been better than us.

Things went wrong immediately from the outset when I chose to bowl first, but we don’t play cricket matches in hindsight. Obviously we are now having regrets about the toss as it was the wrong decision to make but Michael Vaughan would have bowled also. You have to go on the information that you have got and what you see in terms of the conditions.      

It became clear very quickly that we called it wrong when we saw in the first over how slow the wicket was and we didn’t get a great deal of swing either. Let’s just say it was a good toss for Michael Vaughan to lose. I don’t want to blame anyone or single out any names, we all have to improve.

England have been very precise and have executed their plans very well. A lot of credit must go to Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell for the way they batted, after they were given the perfect platform to be able to bat with that kind of aggression. The game was set up for them after the job their openers did. They took the game to us and played very positively and sometimes you have just got to say ‘well played’.

We do seem to make a habit of performing badly in the first Test match of series and this is another one of those times. We haven’t played Test cricket for three months, while England have played a three-Test series against New Zealand and that preparation is probably showing from the way both teams have started this series.

We have done a lot of talking about what has happened and what we need to do as we have to be honest with ourselves. But it is time for us to deliver now and catch up with England’s level of performance as quickly as we possibly can.

In terms of the spirit so far between the teams, the match has been very competitive and will continue to be but it’s been played in the right spirit and I’m sure that will be the case throughout the four matches.

The incident that upset us was the moment the teams were due to return after a rain break on day two. We were told play was restarting at 5.15 and England and the umpires were out there at 5.05 and it made us look as though we were time-wasting but that was not the case at all.

We feel very disappointed that the crowd were booing us when we had done nothing wrong whatsoever or had any malice in the situation. I’m not allowed to criticise officials, and we have no problem with the umpiring or anything like that, but it was the handling of the situation that upset us. I would say the communication was poor and we actually asked the MCC to make an announcement that the South Africa team had no part in the delay. That message was relayed over the PA system. It was an unfortunate moment and it took the gloss away from playing a Lord’s Test, which is always looked upon with so much pride for touring South African cricketers.

I don’t wish to end on a negative note and would like to pay tribute to the innings that Ashwell Prince played yesterday. He deserved to have his name penned on the Lord’s honours board after showing that amount grit and determination. But it wasn’t a surprise to see it as it was the kind of innings that Ash has played many times before. Fortunately for him it happened to be at the home of cricket.

This column was syndicated to The Sunday Telegraph