Batting has been South Africa’s Achilles’ heel during the ongoing series against India, conceded captain J-P. Duminy, who feels each one of his team’s senior players need to “look in the mirror” and improve.
“Unfortunately from a batting perspective, that’s been our Achilles’ heel throughout this Indian tour in the short format. As senior batters, we have to take responsibility for that,” Duminy said after South Africa lost the first T20I.
“We’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror, ask how we can improve and get better. Hopefully that improvement comes on Wednesday. You are going to go through periods in your career, where you go through slumps, be it a senior or a new player.
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“Unfortunately, throughout the series quite a few seniors have come up short, including myself. It’s been a dismal ODI series and today as well.”
Duminy, however, defended his bowlers for peppering the Indian batsmen with short balls, a strategy that didn’t quite work.
“It’s going to come down to execution of our skills. If we execute a plan well, it is potentially going to work. But, unfortunately, with our plans in place, we didn’t execute as well as we’d have liked.
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“I still believe and feel the plans are good, but especially when it’s a shorter format you have to execute well. Unfortunately there were a few missed opportunities throughout the innings. But we’ll definitely come back stronger. I firmly believe that,” he said.
Duminy rejected suggestions that the morale was down in the South African dressing room right now, having already lost the ODI series 5-1.
“I honestly don’t believe that we are dropping our heads, or our body language is bad. Naturally when you put down opportunities, there will be some moping around, and you have to try and get yourself up as quickly as possible especially in a big game like that.
“You are going to feel a bit down and it’s only natural, but in professional sport you have to find a way to get back up and I felt within a few balls we certainly did,” he added.