India cruised to a nine-wicket win with more than 10 balls to spare in the ODI series decider.
Refusing to blame the conditions for their crushing defeat, head coach Shukri Conrad admitted the Proteas had been outplayed in the third one-day international (ODI) against India in Visakhapatnam at the weekend.
After losing the toss and being sent in to bat, the SA team were bowled out for 270 runs, and India coasted to 271/1 with more than 10 overs to spare, earning a nine-wicket victory and wrapping up a 2-1 series win.
Though Conrad felt the South Africans could have been better with the ball, and he pointed out that the damp conditions made things easier for the hosts who batted second, he believed the Proteas had lost the game because they did not rack up as many runs as they should have.
“I don’t think the dew factor was the only difference between the two sides,” Conrad said.
“We were a little bit short with the bat, there’s no doubt. We started off really well with the ball but because we didn’t post a score big enough, the Indian opening batters were under no sort of pressure. They didn’t have to take any risks.
“We let ourselves down with the bat. We needed to post something a lot more competitive to put India under pressure.”
Controversial comment
Conrad, meanwhile, said he regretted a controversial comment he made after the Proteas’ historic 2-0 Test series win over India last month.
Asked why they had opted to declare their second innings later than expected in the second Test, the coach had said they wanted to make India ‘grovel’, and he received widespread backlash from Indian fans for his choice of words.
And though Conrad believed the controversy had “added some spice” to the ODI series, he also felt it had taken some shine off the SA team’s memorable Test series victory.
“The unfortunate thing is all the noise that word (grovel) caused. I still think it’s a perfectly good English word, but it just left it open to too many interpretations,” he said.
“But what it did was take the gloss off of what was a really special win for our Test team, so it’s unfortunate but there was definitely no malice intended.”
South Africa and India will now square off in five T20 International matches starting with the series opener in Cuttack on Tuesday.
