"He (Virat) was fantastic. We all know how good Virat is and he was the real danger. He paced his innings well and played some good shots. He was too good for us," Du Plessis said after his team's six-wicket defeat to India.
The skipper was miffed with the manner his bowlers gave away nine extra deliveries during the innings.
"If you look at it like this -- we did not do the small things correctly which put us on the backfoot. We bowled nine extra deliveries. It's not only about the extra deliveries we bowled but also about the amount of runs scored from those deliveries. We were a little bit indisciplined today."
"Dale is also human. It's hard to expect that he would win us matches everyday. He did not bowl badly today but the Indian batsmen were upto the task."
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The skipper gave a nice reply when he was asked about whether he regrets giving Wayne Parnell the 17th over, which turned the match decisively in India's favour.
"You can look at it from both ways. You would have been asking me the same question had Parnell bowled the 18th over and got hit for runs!"
"We have to admit that their batsmen outskilled us today. We always knew that Dale had to bowl the 18th and the 20th over."
"Statistically we have seen that A B is at his best when he comes into bat after 10 overs in the innings. When he has come out to bat earlier, it has not been that good. And if you are saying that A B could have batted faster than JP and me, I don't know," he said.