PROTEAS coach, Mark Boucher, believes there are more positives than negatives from their recent tour of India.
The Proteas squandered a golden opportunity to clinch the five-match series against the Indians by losing the last two matches.
Boucher’s side convincingly beat the hosts in the first two matches before allowing India a way back in the next two matches.
The fifth and final match, which would have been the decider, was washed out on Sunday, leading to a share of the spoils.
But Boucher reckons his side did a lot of good things in India and wants to focus on the positive.
“I think there’s plenty of lessons that we can take from this tour,” said Boucher.
“We came to India on the back of a long IPL season with a lot of their players were in good form having played a lot of cricket in those conditions.
“I will take the draw, we haven’t played our best cricket, it was quite tough on some of the players who haven’t had a break in a while. But we will take the positives, it’s World Cup year and we need to look and plug a few gaps going into the World Cup.”
Boucher admits, though, that there are a few areas that they need to address heading into the T20 World Cup in Australia later this year.
“We struggled upfront with our batting, we speak about it after every game and we try and see how we can have more intent,” added Boucher.
“Our bowling has been good at certain stages, but it also looked rusty here and there.”
Boucher believes the tour will serve as good preparation for the World Cup, even though the tournament will take place under completely different conditions Down Under.
“It’s tough coming to play India in their conditions,” added Boucher.
“It wasn’t the strongest Indian team with all their top players but the depth they have because of the IPL means their squad is really good.
“You don’t just rock up in India and expect to win. We played a couple of good games and we had two bad games and there are a few reasons for that, but you can’t read too much into that. Our plans will obviously change going into the World Cup.”
