Rajkot: Despite dominating the match for most of the time, India let the chance go as some superb bowling by the Proteas in the last 20 overs helped them beat the home team by 18 runs in the third ODi at Rajkot on Sunday. Indian skipper MS Dhoni said that the wicket kept getting lower and slower with time and the dew factor didn't help us his team either.
“I thought 270 was a par score. The wicket kept getting lower and slower and the dew didn't help us out. It became difficult to play the big shots,” said Dhoni, adding that they were are looking for batsmen to play at No. 5, 6 and 7.
“Till the time they play there, we won’t know who is a good bet on those positions. We are also looking to give chances to players. Jinx (Ajinkya Rahane) batted well at N0. 3 but Virat couldn't score. This is something we will have to look at. I thought our bowlers did well and maybe a bit more dew would have made it difficult. The Proteas batted when the wicket was at its best and they also couldn't find runs at the death,” said Dhoni.
South African captain AB de Villiers said that it was very special batting performance. “Quinton answered a lot of questions just like how Quinton can do. We struggled between the 37th and 44th over but found our way at the end. To have Miller up front was out of the box thinking from us. We were looking at 250 as a par and the way we fought back with the ball was special.”
Meanwhile, Morne Morkel, who was man-of-the-match said that he really worked hard on mixing it up a bit. “I'm a rhythm bowler and need things to click to operate. We had a couple of gameplans and it is important to execute and we did that.”
