Day zero for the battered Proteas
SA have their backs to the wall and must win the second of three T20 matches against India at SuperSport Park on Wednesday to avoid losing the series.
The Proteas lost the first match by 28 runs at the Wanderers on Sunday.
For the Proteas to prevail against an in-form Indian side‚ batting‚ bowling and fielding must improve and stand-in captain JP Duminy admitted that after the loss in Johannesburg.
Reeza Hendricks (70) and Farhaan Behardien (39)‚ who combined for a fourth-wicket partnership of 81‚ were the only Proteas who made notable scores in their chase of 204.
Five others failed to reach double figures.
“They [Hendricks and Behardien] gave us a chance in the game‚” Duminy said.
“With wickets in hand you give yourself a chance to win the game but unfortunately in the ideal world you would have liked to have extended that partnership. When you look at the situation of the game‚ we were looking at about 14 runs an over and they needed to up the ante to take the game forward.
“I was happy to see how Reeza performed under pressure which was exceptional.
“Those are the kinds of positives that we take out of this match and we can take this into the next match.
“From a batting perspective‚ that has been our Achilles heel throughout this Indian tour from a short format point of view.
“As senior players and batters‚ we have to take responsibility for that. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror and say ‘how can we improve and become better?’.”
With ball in hand‚ the Proteas never fully recovered after India managed a flying start to score 78 runs in the powerplay, including three maximums and four boundaries, exploiting the bowlers’ ploy of bowling short balls upfront.
“The bowlers executed their plans very well. Our plans might have been slightly different and where we came short was about assessing the conditions as quickly as possible.
“India are very simple and it works for them very well.
“We are trying to find something that will work for us but we are moving in the right direction in terms of execution.
“The plan was always to try and take wickets‚ the mindset was an aggressive one but you are bound to leak runs with that attitude‚” Duminy said.
Improvements are also needed in the field as Behardien disappointed by dropping Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli, with Titans teammate Tabraiz Shamsi putting down Manish Pandey from a routine chance.
“We tried and unfortunately there were a few missed opportunities throughout the game but we will definitely come back stronger in the next game.
“I honestly don’t believe we are dropping our heads and our body language is bad.
“I believe we were good in the field today bar the missed opportunities.”