Gibson: The future looks bright

Ottis Gibson says he was impressed with the ‘exciting new talent’ in the Proteas set up throughout the India tour.

Gibson said this despite watching the Proteas continue their lousy T20I record at Newlands as they lost the match, and the series to India on Saturday night. South Africa have now lost six out of nine matches in Cape Town.

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JP Duminy once again proved that he was the country’s top T20 player when he scored his 11th half-century to extend his record as the Proteas’ all-time T20I top scorer with 1,822 at an average of 37.95. Christiaan Jonker played a courageous knock, losing his wicket one-run short of a debut half-century off 24 balls. Junior Dala also continued his sleek form, finishing with 3-35 and seven wickets in the series.

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Despite losing 5-1 in the ODIs and 2-1 in the T20Is, a defeated Gibson still managed to draw positives out of the limited-overs defeats.

‘We set up at the start of my time here to see new players and I think we have seen some exciting players in the one-day series. Lungi Ngidi made a debut and Heinrich Klaasen made a debut and he’s been excellent I think. Junior Dala in this T20 series was also very good. We also saw a little bit of Christiaan Jonker tonight and he also played an outstanding innings.

‘Losing is never easy to take but when you missing so many seniors and then some new people come in and put their names forward, then the result of the series is hard to take. But you also have to look at the future, and the future, with all the youngsters coming through, is looking like a bright one.’

Attention now shifts to Australia as the Proteas leave for Durban to take on Australia in the first Test starting on 1 March.