Dharamsala, Dec 14 South Africa captain Aiden Markram admitted his side was undone by India’s disciplined bowling in chilly conditions during their seven-wicket loss in the third T20I at the HPCA Stadium, where the visitors were bowled out for 117.
Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav picked two wickets apiece, while Hardik Pandya and Shivam Dube chipped in with a scalp each, as South Africa never recovered from being reduced to 30/4 inside seven overs. In reply, India completed the chase with 25 balls to spare and take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series.
“It’s hard to say. Tough conditions up front. They got the ball in the right areas and before you know it, you’re four, five, six down. So, got to give credit to their bowling. Few of them bowled a Test-match delivery, Test-match length, it was challenging. So if conditions are the same moving forward, you’re just going to have to find ways to get through that and try to put some pressure back on them.”
“You’ve just got to give credit to that bowling unit on the night. It was tough. You want to play in this format, but they didn’t give us much to score off. Tried to just take it deep. We obviously lost a couple of wickets, so you think to try to take it deep and make a play at the end,” said Markram in the post-match presentation ceremony.
Markram, who top-scored with 61, said if a score of 140-150 was on board, it would have changed how the game played out. “The whole time I was thinking maybe 140, 150 - I think we were massively in the game.”
“So again, if I come off at the death there, I feel like I should be hitting that ball for six, then it could be a different game. So it is small margins. We’re not going to look too deeply into it. We’ll have to have a few answers if conditions are the same. That’s the case.”
Markram further stressed on the importance of finding the right match-ups and being positive in tackling them. “In conditions like these, it’s probably picking a bowler on the night that you feel like you can target. I don’t think it’s a wicket where you can just get away with trying to hit everyone.”
“So it’s finding that match-up, and when the match-up comes, completely backing yourself. In between there, try to be efficient, try to keep the scoreboard ticking. I think you get to that score of 140, 150.”
“You never want to curb players, you never want to speak any negative language about keeping the ball on the floor or whatever the case might be. You always want to encourage the boys to play. Each person will take lessons from tonight and be better cricketers afterwards.”
Markram signed off by saying South Africa could have done things differently with the ball as well. “Obviously the start. They were always going to play that way - so credit to him (Abhishek), he came off. But we’re always going to gauge it on the amount of balls we landed in the right area.”
“Possibly in those first three or four overs, not quite enough in the right area. And if we get them in the right area and they go for 60, then so be it. That’s probably the bit we’ll gauge.”
“But after that, I thought they were much better. So another positive, extending the game as much as they did by holding length. Holding length pretty well and consistently, and yeah, asking some good questions.”
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