Stand-in captain Quinton de Kock says the fourth ODI against Sri Lanka was exciting, despite their three-run defeat in Kandy. 

The Proteas’ fourth ODI against Sri Lanka was stricken by rain. As a result, Sri Lanka’s innings was reduced to 39 overs and they produced their best batting display of the series.

Rain interrupted the Proteas’ innings as well, which forced their innings to be reduced to 21 overs with a target of 191 for victory. The Proteas took the game to the wire and ended up losing by three runs.

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De Kock addressed the media for the first time as captain after the match.

‘I think a day like today is always going to be frustrating for the players and the fans. Everybody wants a nice, clean game,’ he said.

‘It’s cricket at the end of the day and we got a great game out of it… it was still nice to get out on the field.

‘It was exciting. During the Test matches it was very one-sided and in the first three ODIs, we beat them quite convincingly, so to have a game like that eventually is nice, for the players and the fans.

‘Unfortunately, we came out on the losing side, but they played really well.’

Despite Sri Lanka scoring 306-7, De Kock and the Proteas always felt like they were in the game.

‘We spoke about it and we thought it was a par score. We knew it was a batting wicket and just getting better and better, but they bowled really well and you can’t take that away from them. They kept the pressure on us,’ he said.

‘They kept picking up wickets at the right time and were clever with the way they went about things. They were just better than us in the second part of the game.’

The fifth and final ODI takes place on Sunday.

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