MUMBAI, Oct 12: South Africa skipper Graeme Smith said England's success in their Ashes defence starting in Australia next month will depend on how they cope with the aggressive home crowds.

The South African team complained of a barrage of racial taunts during their tour of Australia at the turn of the year that prompted the International Cricket Council to introduce a new code of conduct on racism and strict measures for spectators.

“How England deal with the crowds could be the biggest factor in the Ashes series,” said Smith, preparing for the Proteas' Champions Trophy campaign in India.

“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.”

England won the Ashes 2-1 at home last year after 18 years of Australian domination.

Smith suggested England skipper Andrew Flintoff find ways to get the Australians to focus attention on himself so as to give his team mates time to adjust to the environment.

“As a leader in Australia, Andrew is going to have to carry a lot of heat,” Smith was quoted in The Courier-Mail on Thursday.

“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.”—Reuters