Rishabh Pant scored 85 runs in India’s loss to South Africa in Friday’s second ODI.© AFP
Indian wicketkeeper batter Rishabh Pant said on Friday that Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s form is not a problem and everyone in the team is aware of the quality of the pacer. Quinton de Kock (78) and Janneman Malan (91) took the baton for the occasion as South Africa defeated India by seven wickets in the second ODI to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match streak. For South Africa, Rassie van der Dussen and Aiden Markram remained unbeaten at 37 each. Bhuvneshwar gave up 67 runs in his eight overs in the second ODI and didn’t even take a single wicket.
“We are always looking to improve, I don’t think there is much concern about Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s form. We are playing an ODI series after a long time, so we just have to get used to the momentum. We are disappointed that we have the series, but we want to learn from this,” Pant said during a virtual press conference on an ANI question.
“Shardul beat the order well in both games, it’s positive for us. Venkatesh Iyer bowled for us today, there are a lot of positives we can take from this series,” he added.
Previously, Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul played knocks of 85 and 55 respectively, while India scored 287/6 in the allotted twenty overs. Shardul Thakur and Ravichandran Ashwin also had handy unbeaten innings of 40 and 25 respectively. For the Proteas, Tabraiz Shamsi returned with two wickets.
“I think the course was a bit on the slow side. I thought we had enough runs on this wicket, in the last game hitting was difficult in the second innings as the wicket got slower and slower. Today it was the same, but South Africa hit well in the middle phase and that allowed them to chase the goal,” said Pant.
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“Me and KL had a good partnership in the middle, if we continued we would have gotten 15-20 more runs,” he added.
The third and final ODI will be played in Cape Town on Sunday.
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