Mike Hesson has said the home series against South Africa was a lost opportunity as New Zealand had a great chance of winning the series after making it 2-2 on March 1 (Wednesday) in Hamilton.
With some brilliant individual performances, AB de Villiers-led South Africa defeated New Zealand by six wickets in the final ODI to win the series 3-2. The victory also helped the Proteas become the No. 1 ranked team in ODIs.
“This was a lost opportunity, that would be a fair reflection,” Hesson was quoted as saying after 50-over series loss when hosts batting collapsed in the decider.
Hesson further expressed the decisions batsmen took under pressure cost them the game against the Proteas, which eventually made them suffer their first home series loss since 2014.
“I thought we were in a bit clumsy with the bat, some of our decision-making under pressure from some exceptional bowling was disappointing,” Hesson said.
On Saturday, in the fifth ODI, the Kiwis were bundled out for 149 in 41.4 overs in Auckland.
However, the target of 150 was comfortably chased down by South Africa inside 33 overs.
“You don’t want to state the obvious but sometimes you have to. When we were under pressure the way we responded wasn’t where we wanted to be,” Hesson revealed.
On the other hand, Hesson said it was an exciting series against the World No. 1 South Africa.
“It was a heck of a series and a bit of a ding-dong battled against the world No. 1. We got put under pressure by a good side and weren’t able to deal with that,” Hesson remarked.
“We’ll need to improve in terms of soaking up pressure which two or three times this summer we haven’t done as well as we’d have liked. We fell at the last hurdle, but all in all we’ve played some pretty good cricket,” Hesson concluded.