No excuses for a poor performance

HASHIM Amla, who top-scored with 53, acknowledged that South Africa’s first-day total of 236-8 was “not a great position to be in on a standard Kingsmead pitch”.

“A number of us got in, and unfortunately we didn’t capitalise on our starts and go on and get us a bigger total,” he said. “Test cricket is all about getting big hundreds and we didn’t achieve that. We had some good batting spells but we weren’t able to build on them.”

Amla congratulated the Kiwi pace bowlers, saying that their early spells had made it difficult for the South African openers, who resisted for the first hour. He refused to lay the blame for South Africa’s modest total on the conditions.

“We know that big totals don’t come easy at Kingsmead. There may be a time when a ball has your number on it but, be that as it may, we were unable to get through and make it big.

“Sometimes we had to grind it out, while at other times we were able to score freely, but nobody really built on their starts.”

Amla, who modestly said that he had thrived on a succession of bad balls in his innings, didn’t exempt himself from blame, saying he could have “covered” Trent Boult’s wickettaking delivery more effectively, although most of the journalists present were happy to absolve him from any responsibility.

Talking about Quinton de Kock’s run-a-ball 33, Amla would only say that the left-hander was a naturally aggressive batsman and that he played better that way.

“If he hadn’t got out we might have been in a very good position at the end of play. Sometimes you are going to get out playing that way. As he gets more experience he’ll work out what the better (shot-selection) options are. He gave our innings momentum, but unfortunately he wasn’t able to see it through.”