South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis had predicted a run fest at Wankhede Stadium and 459 runs were scored on a manic Friday night here.
South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis had predicted a run fest at Wankhede Stadium and 459 runs were scored on a manic Friday night here. He had also pointed out that anything could be chased on that wicket and it happened so despite SA having posted 229/4.
Ironically South Africa now have the dubious distinction of conceding three 200-plus chases including the highest by the West Indies of 236 in this format at Wanderers last year.
Allrounder JP Duminy admitted there were chinks in their bowling which they had to address.
“We backed ourselves defending 229, but you’ve got to give credit where credit is due. We didn’t bowl as well as we would have liked but England batted outstandingly. They put us on the back foot from ball one,” he said.
“Unfortunately we let ourselves down also from the extras point of view, too many wides (20), that’s something we need to look that.”
What was worse their premier bowler Dale Steyn was dispatched for 23 runs in his first over and he ended up bowling just two overs for 35 runs.
Despite Imran Tahir (1/28) bowling well and Duminy (1/31) also conceding below the required rate in his three overs, South Africa’s pace battery was hammered for 171 runs in just 13 overs.
“It put us on the back-foot, but it’s not only that he (Steyn) went for 23, if you look at entire power-play period, we were under the pump,” Tahir said.
