Gerald Coetzee says that Sanju Samson’s fluent century played a huge role in their heavy 61-run loss against India in the first T20 International at Kingsmead Stadium in Durban on Friday.
South Africa trails India by 1-0 in the four-match T20I series, with the second match set to take place at St Georges Park in Gqeberha today (4pm start).
A Sanju Samson (107 off 50) century handed India the ascendancy with a winning score of 202 in their 20 overs. South Africa were forced into a corner, and they struggled to navigate the spin threat of Varun Chakravarthy and Ravi Bishnoi, who tore in to the homeside batting line-up picking up three wickets apiece, reducing them to a 141 all-out with over two overs to spare.
The Proteas beat India by five wickets the last time they met in St Georges Park in a T20 encounter. They will go into the match with a heavy representation of the SA20 players from the local side Sunrisers Eastern Cape, including captain Aiden Markram, who has led them to two consecutive titles.
Coetzee was high in praise for Samson’s fluent innings, but also expects South Africa to have a better showing today.
“We have a few guys that play the SA20, and a few of them are also the locals; the last time we played here, we beat India, and we are feeling good to go there. St Georges is a good venue, and we love it there,” Coetzee said in a press conference.
He added: “They put on a good score; I don’t think it was out of reach; we had some good starts with the bat, but we just couldn’t convert. I think that is something to look at heading into the next game, and the boys will know that India batted well, but the score wasn’t anywhere out of our reach.
“There are a few things that went wrong, but there were also a lot of things that went right. I don’t think skill-wise we were too far off; I thought Sanju batted really well. If we look at other things, we bowled pretty well and had one good innings; for the batters, we will need to convert our starts.”
South Africa leaked a lot of runs through out the powerplay and the middle overs, but the fall of Samson helped dry up the runs and restricted India to a chaseable score of 203 in 20 overs.
The 24-year-old was excited to have made his return to the national set-up following his injury and subsequent rest thereafter. Coetzee stuck by South Africa’s decision to bowl first despite being under the pump from the Indian batting onslaught.
“We wanted to bowl first; there was no problem there; the wicket was good for us to have a bowl in the start, but like I mentioned, Sanju played well.
“I’m very grateful to be back; its nice to have a good game, but its a bittersweet moment with the loss, but I’m happy to be back.
“They bowled (Chakravarthy and Bishnoi) exceptionally well, but the game for them wasn’t won only in the bowling department; Sanju’s innings played a big role; they are class bowlers, and they bowled really well. We are going to have our hands full for the next few games though, but we also have good batters in our team.”