After the disastrous show in fifth ODI, South Africa coach Ottis Gibson blamed his batsmen for the series loss to India. The Proteas went down to India by 73 runs to trail 1-4 in the six-match series with one match to go.
“I thought at the halfway stage we gave ourselves a very good chance to keep ourselves in the series. We came this afternoon very optimistic that the series was still there to be drawn. To bowl them out for 270-odd was a great effort from the bowlers, and we let ourselves down with the bat. There’s not a lot more to say than that. It’s something we have been talking about for five games now. We showed at the Wanderers that we can play better than we have done, but tonight was disappointing” he said.
“You want to have a group of players who can adapt to certain conditions and play accordingly. We know we have those players but they haven’t produced it in this series, which is disappointing. The way we have played as a group at certain times has been disappointing but especially tonight because there was still a lot to play for in the series,” he added.
“To be fair we were 50 for none and we lost a wicket with four balls to go in the PowerPlay to their best bowler. Bumrah has been their fast bowler all summer. We lost a couple more shortly thereafter and that set us back. Hash worked really hard to try and rebuild but every time we rebuilt we lost wickets. With the four bowlers, we needed our best six or seven batsmen to bat the bulk of the overs and they weren’t able to do that tonight.”
[2/14, 12:53] Pushpendra Albe: “We succumbed quite easily tonight, to be bowled out in 42 overs is very disappointing from a batting point of view. Even with the bowling there were some soft boundaries, which has gone on the whole series. So just a bit more fight with the bat” he added further.
