Inability to perform in the middle overs, both with bat and ball, led to India’s undoing in the first ODI in Paarl on Wednesday, captain KL Rahul pointed out.

“We started off really well, but we couldn’t get wickets in the middle. We’ll look to see how we can get wickets in the middle overs and restrict the opposition,” Rahul said at the post-match presentation.

“Our middle order too couldn’t get going. We were on par for the first 20-25 overs of the game. I thought we would chase it down easily, but South Africa bowled really well and got crucial wickets.”

From 138/1 in the 26th over, India slipped to 199/7 in the 39th over with hardly any resistance whatsoever from the middle over. Agreed the Boland Park pitch was on the slower side and offered a fair bit of assistance to spinners, which India’s Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal surprisingly couldn’t quite utilise.

But as Rahul said, batting didn’t become tougher in the second part. “I didn’t bat after the 20th over, so I don’t know if it changed drastically. But Virat (Kohli) and Shikhar (Dhawan) said that it was a good wicket to bat on, and you just had to spend some time in the middle.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the partnership going. Shikhar and Virat did really well, putting pressure on the bowlers. Besides, we couldn’t get those wickets in the middle and gave away maybe 20 runs extra.

“But again, we just needed more partnerships in the middle,” Rahul stated.

No 6th bowler

Venkatesh Iyer didn’t have a debut worth remembering, having scored only two batting at No.6. But that he would be India’s sixth bowler was categorically mentioned by Rahul in his pre-match news conference. But the pacer all-rounder didn’t even get to bowl, which was baffling.

“It wasn’t needed. The wicket had some turn for the spinners, who didn’t do a bad job. No wickets fell in the middle overs, so we wanted our main bowlers to carry on and give us a breakthrough,” was Dhawan’s explanation.

‘Perfect game’

South Africa captain Temba Bavuma, one of the centurions along with Rassie van der Dussen, termed it as “close to a perfect game” for the Proteas. Effusive in his praise for Man of the Match Van der Dussen, Bavuma said the 204-run fourth-wicket partnership between him and the Proteas’ No.5 batsman turned out to be the deciding factor of the game.

“We played close to a perfect game, which is quite hard in 50-over cricket. We can take a lot of confidence from this win,” Bavuma said.

“I struggled throughout the innings, but Rassie seemed like batting on another wicket. That partnership between the two of us was the decider. I just tried to partner him as much as I could,” the skipper added.