While Ashwin trapped Tristan Stubbs lbw with his fourth ball, his over left South Africa needing a run-a-ball 12 off the last two overs, which Miller and Wayne Parnell knocked off with two balls to spare.
“I have seen what happens in the last over with spinners, so I just wanted to go the other way and see if I could finish Ash and not keep him for the last over,” Rohit said at the post-match presentation. “I just wanted to make sure that the seamers were bowling the right overs but honestly, when you have options like that, you have to use them at some point. I thought given the new batter [Stubbs] came in, it was a perfect time for him to bowl. But things like that can happen. Miller played some good shots as well.”
“Honestly, when you see that score [40 for 3], you will always think you are in the game because the pitch is such that a wicket can come at any time for the seamers,” Rohit said. “But I felt that was a match-winning partnership from their perspective from Markram and Miller.
“We were a little poor in the field as well. We gave too many chances on the field and we were not quite clinical. We have played in such [cold] conditions before so that was not an excuse at all. We were not just good enough.
“The last two games we played, we were pretty good in the field and we want to continue to be consistent in that department. But unfortunately we couldn’t hold our chances, a few run-outs we missed, including myself. But we need to keep our heads high and think about what’s coming for us and take learnings from this game, what we need to do in games like that.”
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