Bowlers need to learn lesson, find ways to defend totals: JP Duminy

Mumbai,19 March। Following England's record run chase in the World Twenty20 cricket tournament, South Africa's star batsman Jean-Paul Duminy pointed out that his team's bowlers need to learn lessons from the loss and must find ways to defend big totals in crucial games.

Batting first, the Proteas posted a commendable 229/4 in 20 overs, thanks to half-centuries each from Hashim Amla, Duminy and Quinton de Kock.

In reply, England opener Jason Roy struck a quickfire 43 off 16 balls which was followed by Joe Root's match-winning 83 off 44 that helped the team chase down the total as they posted 230/8 in 19.4 overs at the Wankhede Stadium here on Friday evening.

This was the second-best run-chase in T20 Internationals and best in World T20 history.

"We will definitely need to take lessons out of it and we need to take responsibility for that as a bowling group. It's not only the seamers, as a spinner we need to make sure and try and see where we can improve, but it is always nice to be scoring that amount of runs. But we got to find ways to defend it. Definitely, we would have backed ourselves defending 229, but you got to give credit to England, we did not ball as we would have liked," Duminy said at the post match press conference here.

"But they batted outstandingly, the first six overs, they put us on the back-foot, from ball one, we sought of little bit recovered in the middle but you know on a field like this and a wicket that we played on, when you are getting the asking rate below 10, it is tough to defend. So ya, unfortunately we let ourselves down also from the extras point of view ... too many wides and so forth so... that's something we need to look that," he said.

The 31-year-old praised Root for his match-winning knock which guided England to victory.

"He (Root) had a formidable summer, going back to playing us in South Africa, he (Root) is definitely being the man in form for all formats, he always had that sort of things in him. A calm head, assessing the situation pretty well, he is being the anchor in their team no matter what format ... today (Friday) he placed his innings pretty well... I am sure he would have like to finish it towards the end, congrats to him, he played pretty well," he said.

The Proteas now face a must win game against Afghanistan on Sunday.

Speaking about the crucial match, Duminy said, "We take a lot of positives to take out of it (the game) especially the batting point of view ... there is room for improvement from bowling point of view, but we need on to move to the next game it's a quick turnaround for ... Afghanistan coming on Sunday, we (have to) make sure that we prepare well for that game."

Agency