Faf rues missed opportunities

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Cricket365
April 5, 2014

Proteas captain Faf du Plessis admitted that South Africa to do "small things correctly" in their World T20 semi-final loss to India, but added that match winner Virat Kohli "too good" for his side on the day.

"He (Virat) was fantastic. We all know how good Virat is and he was the real danger. He paced his innings well and played some good shots. He was too good for us," Du Plessis told reporters after his side's six-wicket loss to India.

Despite Kohli's brilliance on the night, Du Plessis was disappointed in his bowlers, particularly with the nine wides they bowled during the innings.

"If you look at it like this — we did not do the small things correctly which put us on the backfoot. We bowled nine extra deliveries. It's not only about the extra deliveries we bowled but also about the amount of runs scored from those deliveries. We were a little bit indisciplined today."

Du Plessis stopped short of criticizing pace ace Dale Steyn, though, who he admitted wasn't at his brilliant best on the day.

"Dale is also human. It's hard to expect that he would win us matches every day. He did not bowl badly today but the Indian batsmen were up to the task.

"We have to admit that their batsmen outskilled us today. We always knew that Dale had to bowl the 18th and the 20th over."

The skipper, however, defended the decision to send AB de Villiers in below himself and JP Duminy.

"Statistically we have seen that A B is at his best when he comes into bat after 10 overs in the innings. When he has come out to bat earlier, it has not been that good. And if you are saying that A B could have batted faster than JP and me, I don't know," he said.

"When India opened with two seamers, we thought that they had missed a trick. The idea to start with Duminy came from that but we saw that the ball started skidding a bit.

"This was a good wicket. In Chittagong, the ball did not turn much. Ashwin today really bowled well. He is a good bowler. Immy (Imran Tahir) got a chance to measure himself against these guys. It was really a good game of cricket."