We lacked substantial partnerships, says Faf Du Plessis

Durban: South Africa captain Faf du Plessis has blamed lack of substantial partnerships as the main reason behind his side’s six-wicket loss to India in the opening ODI of the six-match series, here.
Du Plessis feels the hosts were 60 runs short after electing to bat first on a Durban surface that progressively quickened up.
Du Plessis scored a classy 120, his ninth ODI hundred, but did not get the required support from the other end as Indian wrist spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal strangled South African batsmen in the middle overs.
“We didn’t bat well today. As a batting unit, for the second top score to be 30 or 40 shows that there weren’t 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 post-match press briefing.
“I thought the Indian spinners bowled well but still we should have been better today against them.
“I certainly think we needed 300. 260 odd wasn’t 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 it’s unfair to say to the bowlers that they were poor. I thought we didn’t have enough runs. If we had got 60-70 more, it would have been easier for our bowlers,” he added.
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 1-0 lead in the six-match ODI series.
Yadav finished with 3 for 34 in 10 overs and was easily the pick of the India bowlers. He bamboozled the South African batsmen with his craft and removed JP Duminy, David Miller and Chris Morris to star in the win.
Du 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 white-ball cricket the game is moving towards wrist-spinners, because they have the ability to pick up wickets and that’s what they (Yadav and Chahal) did today,” Du Plessis said.
“We’ll have a good discussion after this game and hopefully in the second game we’ll play them better. It’s been a bad day at the office for us. So we need to quickly learn from the mistakes. It’s a very long series, so it’s important that we refocus for the next game,” he added.
Asked about the surprise element of the two Indian wrist spinners, Du Plessis said, “When we saw their team we knew they were going to bowl spin early to us. Obviously they have got another off-spinner as well.