Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Dec 4: South Africa’s coach Russell Domingo admitted Friday that his team has fallen apart whenever the Indians have applied the pressure on them during the ongoing Test series.
“Once we’ve been put under pressure, we’ve capitulated, while they haven’t. Their lower and middle orders fought back and managed to give them good scores, and we haven’t been able to do that in the entire series,” stated Domingo after the visitors were dismissed for 121 in the first innings of the fourth Test against India.
“We didn’t bat very well this (Friday) afternoon and we have a lot of thinking to do. It just wasn’t good enough as a performance and we have our backs to the wall. We lacked mental toughness,” Domingo added.
Domingo, however stated that there is still a lot at stake for the South Africans in spite of India already building an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series. “There’s no dead rubber when you play international cricket, and the players were all keen to play good cricket, which we haven’t done in the last few weeks. But again we are disappointed at the show we have so far put up in this Test,” Domingo lamented.
“It has been a long tour, but that is no excuse. There is a lot of pride in that change-room, and a lot of hurt players after the performance that we put up today,” a dejected Domingo added.