Amla: Could have applied ourselves better

"A lot of dismissals actually in both teams were due to lack of turn more than due to excess of turn. Sometimes those are the more difficult pitches to play on. It was just making an error in judgement."

Hashim Amla said South Africa's batsmen erred in judgement.

Lack of application: I agree that we could have applied ourselves a bit better. There were certain decisions that we made while batting that were not right. Even though it was such a short Test match, I think we managed to hold our own right until the last innings here. The chat that we had in our meetings was that the ball wasn’t turning that much, actually. A lot of dismissals actually in both teams were due to lack of turn more than due to excess of turn. Sometimes those are the more difficult pitches to play on. It was just making an error in judgement.

Vernon Philander as opener: We thought we would try and mix it up, try and get a right-hander up front and Vernon I always felt was one of those with solid techniques. He has done a great job for us at No. 7, sometimes against the second new ball and things like that. It didn’t pay off this game but I firmly believe it was a good idea to try and change it up, especially if Ashwin was going to bowl.

Tactics if the nature of pitches remains unchanged: As I said earlier, if you look at the game right until the last innings, I think we kind of did pretty well. Kept the game pretty close to us and almost gave us the chance to win. If the wickets are the same, then hopefully we don’t make the same mistakes and win the game. We have been probably as prepared as we can be. Just making a few mistakes cost us.

Dale Steyn’s injury: Not having Dale obviously is a difficult one because he is the best fast bowler in the world and certainly in the subcontinent the most successful fast bowler. So it would have been great to have him.