Proteas must learn from their mistakes and stop playing “Cowboy cricket”, says stand-in T20I skipper Heinrich Klaasen.
An inexperienced South Africa side were beaten 2-1 in the shortest format by Pakistan over a three-match series.
Sunday’s defeat by four wickets was set up by another batting collapse, falling to 65/7 before David Miller smashed an unbeaten 85 to keep them in the game.
Tabraiz Shamsi took 4/25 as SA tried to defend 165, but the Proteas were let down by the rest of the team.
And Klaasen, who made a duck, took responsibility for a second failure in the series.
He says: “We started with some cowboy cricket and I take full responsibility for that collapse.
“Shamsi was outstanding with four wickets, good fightback but not enough.
“A [wet ball] is not an excuse, we’ve got all the equipment to make it dry and we are allowed to change it.”
“We are looking for a specific way to play. There were bits and pieces in this game so we are going in the right way, we just have to keep fighting, good learning curve for the boys, straight back home to our domestic season.”
Coach Mark Boucher agreed that his span must improve in the big moments and play smarter cricket to avoid similar defeats.
He adds: “Yeah, there were definitely key moments again that cost us.
“But we will try to improve and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again.
“We tried to play positive cricket on this tour, and we showed it in the second game, maybe we could have been smarter in some situations.”
“As a bowling unit we did well at times. Batting, we didn’t do that well. But all in all, the team was brave.
“The beauty about T20 cricket is you can basically analyse every moment.
“And there were moments where you could see where we cost ourselves.
“If you look at the last game, losing three wickets in a short space really put us under pressure.
“So you can look back and say that key moments really cost us in this tour.
“But for me as a coach, I’ll try to get the message through to the players.”
The Proteas now return to action in the domestic T20 Challenge which starts on Friday in Durban.
Only Quinton de Kock and Faf du Plessis have been rested for the tournament that runs until February 28.