T20 World Cup India vs South Africa: We couldn’t hang on to our chances, says Rohit Sharma | Cricket News

PERTH: Both pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar and captain Rohit Sharma rue India’s missed chances in the field after the defeat against South Africa. The normally electric Virat Kohli missed a crucial catch Rohit missed an easy run out chance himself. Bhuvneshwar made no bones about being disappointed with the fielding effort.
“Yeah, when you take those catches, it’s a different thing. You know catches win games,” he said. “If we could have taken those chances, who knows things could have been different.”

Asked at what point in the field he felt the momentum was shifting to the South Africans, Bhuvi said: “I think the catches we dropped and the chances we missed. I wouldn’t say the momentum shifted not … but if (only) we could have taken those chances . . . ”
Captain Rohit also said during the post-match presentation, “We couldn’t hold on to our chances. We missed a few runs, including myself. We were a bit poor in the field. We gave away so many chances in the field and we weren’t clinical. We just weren’t good enough. The last two games we’ve been pretty good in the field. We’ve got to keep our heads up and take a learn (sic) from this game.”
Asked if it was difficult to play in the cold and windy conditions, especially during fielding, Bhuvneshwar said, “It was very difficult. But we never talked about it. We knew that we would face those conditions and the cold had to deal with. . . . also in Melbourne.”

Bhuvneshwar figured somewhere close to 140 would have been a par score. “We know it’s a tough wicket to bat on. If you look at how the tournament has gone so far (in Perth) … 130-140 has not been up to par, but somewhere close to that. We knew even 140 would give us a chance if we could get there. You could see the game going to the last over, the last bowler.”
India decided to bat first both at the SCG and here, in completely different conditions. Both matches were the second of double-headers, and perhaps give an indication of how India plans to approach the rest of the World Cup. “It’s a beautiful strategy,” Bhuvneshwar said.
“When you play in the sub-continent, you generally try to chase. In Australia, things keep changing from ground to ground, city to city. We batted first because we knew that chasing is not an easy task, especially in Perth.”
Lungi Ngidi might have a thing or two to say about it!