IND vs SA: After the defeat in the second ODI, Rahul said that the toss was important, did not scoring many runs in the death overs prove costly?

Indian captain KL Rahul admitted that India's inability to score enough runs in the death overs cost them dearly, but he believes the toss played a key role in the second ODI against South Africa. Rahul blamed the toss as well as the dew factor, which prevented the Indian bowlers from defending a large target.

South Africa defeats India.

South Africa defeated India by four wickets in the second ODI. Batting first at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Raipur, India scored 358 for five in 50 overs, thanks to centuries from Virat Kohli and Ruturaj Gaikwad. In reply, South Africa, aided by a century from Aiden Markram and half-centuries from Matthew Britzke and Dewald Brevis, scored 362 for six in 49.2 overs to win the match. With this victory, the visitors leveled the three-match ODI series 1-1 with India. Now, the two teams will face each other in the final and decisive match in Visakhapatnam on December 6th.

Dew was blamed for the defeat.

KL Rahul said, "There was a lot of dew here, which made bowling in the second innings very difficult. We performed well in the last match, but in this match, the umpires were changing the ball. The toss played a big role in the match. A score of 350 was good with the bat, but there was a discussion in the dressing room about how we could have scored 20-25 extra runs to give the bowlers some help."

Praised Kohli and Ruturaj

The Indian captain praised Virat Kohli and Ruturaj Gaikwad, who scored centuries in Raipur. Rahul said, "The way Ruturaj batted was amazing to watch. We've seen Kohli do this (a century) 53 times. He's just doing his job. It was great to watch Ruturaj bat. The way he changed gears after scoring a half-century was really interesting."