South Africa head coach Mark Boucher praises Sr. India Fast bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar excelled with the ball throughout the series and kept the visitors under pressure in the power-play phase.
India and South Africa were forced to share the series 2-2 after rain in the series decider in Bengaluru on Sunday, Bhuvneshwar was the Player of the Year for taking wickets in four matches at an average of 14.16 and a strike rate of 10.4. Series selected. The electrifying spell of 4/13 in Cuttack in defeat leads to his best effort in the series.
“We came up against some quality bowling. Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar) was exceptional throughout this series. He put pressure on us in the powerplay. Barring one game, this is one area in which India dominate our players with both bat and ball and that is something we will definitely look into and try and improve,” Boucher said after the match. .
Boucher admitted that South Africa needed to find ways to improve their batting in the first six overs, while admitting that playing consecutive matches was challenging for his team. “In front, with our batting (the way we batted). We fought in a few games to get ahead. We talk about it after every game and the mindset changes, especially in the third game. We didn’t go in and bat with the intention that we needed to.”
“Our bowling was very good in some stages. And on a few occasions we looked a bit stoic. I understand that as some people were coming after us IPL and were weary, some people coming out with great injuries; Some people were sitting on the sidelines in the IPL and were not playing the game. So, finding our feet in back-to-back games is challenging.”
Even before the first ball of the series was bowled, South Africa suffered a major setback when Aiden Markram was ruled out due to contracting COVID-19. Despite reshuffling the batting order in Markram’s absence, Boucher was happy with South Africa retaining their record of not losing a limited-overs series in India since 2011.
“We didn’t play our best cricket; It was tough for IPL players to tour India one after the other. It was tough for them mentally, but they will enjoy the break. But a lot of lessons, especially a . In World Cup year where we can still see if we can bridge some of the gaps going into Australia. You don’t just rock up in India and hope to win. We’ve asked a few questions on this tour, and we’ve got some great answers.
“We can take a lot of lessons (from this result). Aiden Markram was hard to beat before starting the first game. It put pressure on us. We wanted to play six batsmen, with Aiden as our sixth bowling option. But we couldn’t do that. You come to India after the IPL season. Many of his players are in good form. He has played a lot of cricket in these conditions. I’ll take two-all.”