South Africa captain Faf du Plessis blamed his batsmen's failure to do the most "basic" thing of putting together partnerships for the six-wicket loss to India in the first one-dayer, which ended the Proteas 17-match unbeaten home run on Thursday.Du Plessis felt 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 on Thursday, his ninth ODI hundred, but did not get 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. 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.
"I thought the Indian spinners bowled well but still we should have been better against them," he added.
