IND v SA | Indian bowlers assessed conditions better than we did, admits Quinton de Kock

After being put in to bat, South Africa lost Reeza Hendricks cheaply, but their captain de Kock looked in sublime touch. Together with Temba Bavuma – who made 49 on his debut – he put on a 57-run stand to lay the platform for the middle-order to come in and blaze away against an inexperienced Indian attack. Although Navdeep Saini’s last over went for 16 runs, Deepak Chahar and Hardik Pandya began bowling slower ball after slower ball to put the squeeze on completely. South Africa, instead, chose to go with loads of pace up front, only to find that the Indian top three jumping all over them. In the end, de Kock felt their plan A proved to be the undoing.

“We got off to a good start and towards the end, they bowled pretty well and they assessed the conditions better than we did,” de Kock said at the post-match presentation, reported Cricbuzz.

“There was a lot of pressure on some of the new guys and I think they did pretty well against this world-class opposition. KG upfront tried to pick up wickets and unfortunately, with pace on the ball it looked easier to bat on and pace off the ball seemed to be the better option on this wicket,” he continued.

However, things weren’t as dull for the South African skipper personally in comparison to his team. During his 37-ball 52, de Kock looked as fluent as ever and for a team in transition, the best thing to do is for the captain to lead by example and hope the others follow suit.

“I was quite hungry to get out there and hopefully next time we do better than what we did today with the bat,” de Kock added.

The two teams will now head to the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru for the final T20 of the series on Sunday.