Amla hails De Villiers' brave resistance despite series loss to India

South African skipper Hashim Amla on Monday heaped praise on batting mainstay AB de Villiers for his incredible resistance during his side's 337-run defeat against India in the final Test here at Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium.

With the win, India completed the four-match series 3-0 and climbed up to the second spot in the ICC Test rankings.

"We tried our best. AB de Villiers did the exceptional job to try and hold the game together for us. Unfortunately we didn't get as deep as we wanted to," the 32-year-old captain said during the post-match conference.

Amla, however, defended his side's ultra-defensive approach and said that it was the need of the time in their bid to salvage a draw.

"Nobody wants to block everything .You want to score runs. The need of the time was to try and bat as long as you can, take as many risks out of the equation to try and draw the Test match. So to do it is quite difficult. You kind of appreciate the determination that somebody has shown, AB de Villiers is a prime example in this innings to try and knuckle down for the team's sake," Amla added.

Expressing his disappointment over the loss, the right-handed batsman admitted that the entire batting line-up failed to perform to their full potential, but urged his side to learn something from the defeat for the upcoming series.

"As a captain you always want to lead from the front. I am a captain first, then the batter or the other way around. But either way you want to score runs, but not being able to score runs certainly was disappointing for me. I think as a batting order whole we just didn't manage to get the runs. Sometimes cricket goes that way.

So I am not going to look deep into it, to maintain the same training and to keep getting better is I am looking forward to.

"Having lost the series, we understood that the series has been gone. That's why we are hoping to gain something from this game. I think we did gain a lot in terms of batting. The determination was never lost. So, to lift the morale we have got about two weeks before England come in," Amla said.

Amla also hailed India for batting brilliantly and admitted that they certainly deserved the series victory.

Earlier, Chasing an improbable 480 for win, South Africa were bundled out for 143 despite producing a stupendous resistance for the last two days.

De Villiers, who batted equivalent of almost 50 overs, scored 43 off 297 balls, while captain Amla made 25 off 244 balls.

India had previously ended South Africa's nine-year winning streak in away Test series after winning the third Test.