Shaun Pollock says South Africa’s bowling attack in first ODI vs India was ‘bit of a bowling defence than attack’ | Cricket News

Shaun Pollock lampooned South Africa’s performance in the first ODI against India at Johannesburg after the hosts lost eight wickets to the Men in Blue.
The hosts were skittled out for 116 runs with Arshdeep Singh picking up five wickets while Avesh Khan took four. Andile Phehlukwayo was the top scorer for the Proteas with 33 runs while Tony de Zorzi managed 28 runs.
In return, Shreyas Iyer and Sai Sudharsan both slammed half centuries as India chased down the target with 200 balls in hand. South Africa pacers could only manage to get two wickets.
A legend for South Africa, Pollock scalped 421 Test wickets, 393 ODI wickets and 15 scalps in T20Is for the national team. The former pacer was unhappy with the way South Africa performed.
“Being a fast bowler who has played for South Africa for these many years, part of our DNA was always to put a team on the park with fast bowlers who had the ability to win a game on their own. I’m afraid that the bowling attack I saw there in the first 10-12 overs, was a little bit more of a bowling defence than a bowling attack. It wasn’t what I have come to expect. Couldn’t see how they could have matched what India had put together,” said Pollock while talking on Star Sports after the match.
Pollock also had sharp words for the approach of South African batters, saying rather than them trying to have a positive approach and score quickfire runs, they should have stayed patient and scored big.
“I’m afraid that at some stage you have to take on the responsibility and not be positive and actually get some decent runs on the board,” said Pollock.
To this, Indian cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar said that this attitude stemmed from having too many options in today’s game.
“Back in my day, we didn’t have too many options. If we failed, we had to go back to club cricket. And there was no money in club cricket back then. Today, players have options. You play for your country, you play T20 leagues… you still can put the food on the table. And therefore there is this tendency to go bang-bang (with the bat)! (There is a tendency) If they don’t score runs, if they don’t take wickets, if they get dropped, so what? They will still have some T20 contract somewhere, if not with the IPL, then some league or the other. That makes players take a lot less responsibility. They try to take the easy way out, which is to go ‘bang-bang’. If they succeed, great. If they don’t, the team is 116 all out. So what? There will be another match two days later,” said Gavaskar.
To this, Pollock pointed out how for Indian cricketers, they could just play in IPL or for the national team, but South African cricketers could play for any league around the world.