Smith briefs Flintoff on ugly Australian crowds

Graeme Smith, the South Africa captain, has given Andrew Flintoff instructions on how to deal with Australian crowds during the Ashes. Smith's team was racially abused by spectators throughout their trip in 2005-06, which contributed to the ICC adopting an anti-racism code.

"How England deal with the crowds could be the biggest factor in the Ashes series," Smith said in The Courier-Mail. "It will be England's main challenge - how they handle playing in Australia. The racism stuff was hard for us. Most of us enjoy banter - we had grown up in that environment - but I think the racism and some of the crowd behaviour in Australia was very wrong."

Smith was outspoken throughout the tour, a plan which included saying Shane Warne wanted to be captain, and he advised someone in the England setup to play a similar role in order to take pressure off the junior players. "As a leader in Australia, 'Fred' is going to have to carry a lot of heat," Smith, who struggled with the bat during the trip, said. "England is obviously going to be targeted a lot by the [Australian] media and the public, so how they deal with that is going to be crucial to their success.

"They've got to look at their team and decide who is going to handle the pressure best and that's probably the skipper. It will allow the youngsters in the team to get on and play their cricket and not to deal with other issues as much."