1st ODI: We lacked substantial partnerships, says Faf du Plessis

South African batsman Faf du Plessis celebrates his 100 runs during the first One Day International cricket match between South Africa and India at Kingsmead cricket ground on February 1 2018 in Durban PicAFPSouth Africa captain Faf du Plessis blamed his batsmens failure to do the most basic thing of putting together partnerships for the sixwicket loss to India in the first onedayer which ended the Proteas 17match unbeaten home run Du Plessis felt the hosts were 60 runs short after electing to bat first on a Durban surface that progressively quickened upDu Plessis scored a classy 120 yesterday his ninth ODI hundred but did not get support from the other end as Indian wrist spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal strangled South African batsmen in the middle overs We didnt bat well As a batting unit for the second top score to be 30 or 40 shows that there werent partnerships The most basic thing about ODI cricket is two guys getting together and putting some sort of partnership together Du Plessis said at the postmatch press briefing I thought the Indian spinners bowled well but still we should have been better today against them he added Du Plessis said it was the batsmens job to give the bowlers a decent enough target to defend I certainly think we needed 300260 odd wasnt enough on that deck The last two games we played here we got more runs and won We chased 370 here against Australia So I think its unfair to say to the bowlers that they were poor I thought purely we didnt have runs If we had got 6070 more it would have been easier for our bowlers he said Yadav and his fellow spinner Chahal shared five wickets between them to restrict South Africa to 269 for 8 a target which India overwhelmed with six wickets in hand to take a 10 lead in the sixmatch ODI series Yadav finished with 3 for 34 in 10 overs and was easily the pick of the Indian bowlers He bamboozled the South African batsmen with his craft and removed JP Duminy David Miller and Chris Morris to star in the winDu Plessis said the way Yadav and Chahal bowled last night it shows ODI cricket is slowly tilting in favour of wrist spinners The Proteas skipper said both the Indian spinners brought in a surprise element for his batsmen which was difficult to handle in one go It shows that in whiteball cricket the game is moving towards wristspinners because they have the ability to pick up wickets and thats what they Yadav and Chahal did today Du Plessis saidIts been a bad day at the office for us So we need to quickly learn from the mistakes Its a very long series so its important that we refocus for the next game he added Asked about the surprise element of the two Indian wrist spinners Du Plessis said the hosts will decode them eventually From a batting point of view quite a few guys havent faced their spinners so it will take one or two games for them to get used to it Some of the guys played against these guys in the IPL but not all of them faced them recently With mystery spin or wrist spin it takes one or two games just to get used to the guys actions and their wrists then hopefully you get better at playing them he saidDu Plessis century was the lone bright spot in South Africas batting display yesterday as Yadav and Chahal picked up wickets in the middle overs to put pressure on the hosts India is at their best when they can put pressure on you with their spinners and today they did that and slowed the game down They got wickets through the middle period If you can get wickets through the middle period you will win a lot of oneday games he saidDu Plessis Indian counterpart Virat Kohli 112 also slammed a century his 33rd ODI hundred but that came in a winning cause Hes Kohli very good You know when it comes to chasing he is the main man that you need to get He is a very good controller of the tempo of the inningsSo we know just as in the Tests he is the backbone If we get him you put pressure on them If he is there theyre going to have opportunities of putting pressure on usDefending the total Imran Tahir failed to put any pressure on the Indian batsmen yesterday but Du Plessis backed the legspinner to come good in the next match If Imran bowls well for us then hes our wickettaker in the middle India played him really well Imran generally doesnt go 2 or 3 games without wickets so Ill be very surprised if in the next game he doesnt bowl really well Du Plessis signed offCatch up on all the latest sports news and updates hereDownload the new midday Android and iOS apps to get updates on all the latest and trending stories on the go