Johannesburg, Jan 15: When South Africa dismissed India for a paltry 190 runs at the New Wanderers in the second ODI, Graeme Smith would have been a happy man, confident of easy victory. But the Indian bowlers were able to seal an improbable win to make SA captain Smith reflect on some bad decision-making on the part of his team.

Excerpts from a post-match interview

On losing a tough game

Yeah, it is [disappointing]. But then congratulations to MS Dhoni [who] came up with a healthy, new ballgame today. I think we played very good cricket for maybe 70 overs of the game. Our decision-making at the back-end wasn’t good enough and we’ve got be honest and regroup for Cape Town on Tuesday.

On batting well for his side

I obviously would like to have been there longer but unfortunately got beaten by a good slower ball. I think someone had to build a partnership with me for that period. [There were a] couple of soft dismissals, bad decision-making. [Else] we could have won the game.

On whether he had expected the pitch to yield a lot more runs

Yeah, it did surprise me. [It] was very slow, it stopped quite a bit and made stroke-play quite difficult. I think at the back-end they changed the pace. Munaf [Patel] bowled really well, changed the pace at the back-end. In the end you can’t take it away from [the Indians]. We’ve got to regroup and look at the few things that we did wrong.

On Lonwabo Tsotsobe’s four-for and two back-to-back good games

I think he bowled incredibly well. I think it was a top bowling performance from all of them. We were really good for the first 50 overs and for 25 overs with the bat, probably. Unfortunately, we weren’t good enough to get through the line. We’ve got to reproduce the good things on Tuesday and hopefully improve some of the things that we did wrong.