Perth: Dinesh Karthik limped off the field clutching his back midway through the South Africa innings on Sunday, while substitute Rishabh Pant kept the wickets for the rest of the match.
India are still ascertaining the extent of Karthik’s injury and Bhuvneshwar Kumar said the team management will monitor his fitness in the coming days.
“We will know the extent of injury once we reach the hotel and the physio and trainer examine him. So, we will have an update in the next few hours,” said Bhuvneshwar in the post-match press conference.
Bhuvneshwar also said the team reached near the par score but a few crucial misses cost them the match. “We knew 140 was a par score on this pitch. We came close to that but we missed a couple of chances on the field as well. We fought hard but unfortunately it was not enough on the day,” said Bhuvneshwar.
Costly error
Virat Kohli had dropped Aiden Markram on 36 when the SA were on 64 and the drop prove a bit costly as the right-hander went on to add a further 16 runs to his score to complete a fine fifty for him. Importantly, David Miller also scored a fifty at the other end and helped SA went past the tape in a final-over thriller.
Confidence-boosting win
SA batter Markram said the win will boost South Africa’s semi-final chances and they need to focus on the upcoming games as well.
“Now, we have another big game coming our way against Pakistan and another important game against Netherlands. We need to keep our focus and do well in that game and ensure that we end up on the right side of the result,” said Markram.
South Africa now have 5 points from 3 games and are currently on top of the table in Group 2.
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