By Brian Thomas
Day 2 at kingsmead in Durban was bright and sunny. The gentle breeze with the Cyprus tree swaying indicated the festive season at hand, but to Sri Lanka, it was a day best forgotten than cherished. The moisture on the pitch aided by the constant rain restricted South Africa from using the heavy roller , instead, they wisely used the light roller to ensure that the Sri Lankan seamers would not get the extra bounce by a hard surface upfront based on the fact that the home team was huffing and puffing having lost 4 wickets for 80 runs after being put into bat with Temba Bavuma unbeaten on 28 and Kyla Varranine on 9 runs to his credit.
Sri Lanka got an early breakthrough with Lahiru Kumara getting an indipper, which wrapped Kyla on the pads and was ruled LBW without adding to his overnight score of 9 with the protease on 83 followed by an injury to Wiaan Mulder who fractured his finger off a Lahiru Kumara delivery that hit his fingers. Marco Jansen, the hero with the ball, was next to Lbw to Prabath Jayasuriya for 13 , followed by a brilliant catch grasped by Kamindu Mendis at deep mid on to aid Jayasuriya with his second scalp of the day and South Africa looked down the barrel on 117 for 7 wickets , the victim being Gerald Coetzer.
Keshav Mahraj at number 8 is no mug with the bat. A quick fire 24 changed the complex of the game , with Kagisgo Rabada using his long handle for his 15, which helped Skipper Temba Bavuma to compile his 22nd half century and was ultimately scalped for 70 by Vishwa Fernando. The South Africans were ultimately bowled out for 191, taking into consideration that the Subcontinent teams struggle against the bounce to negate , hence, 191 looked on this surface, and it looked good.
The South African seamers simply routed the experience of the Sri Lankan batters look so mediocre that they collapsed like a deck of cards for their lowest total in the rich history of Test skills in batting to an appaling 42 all out in less than 17 overs. Hero of the day, as scripted by me earlier, took his career best of 13 runs for 7 wickets in an unplayable bowling spell in 6.5 overs. Gerald Coetzee scalped 2 for 18 and Kagisgo Rabada 1 for 10 . This fast and furious seam trio and the bounce they extracted off this surface had Sri Lankan batters to a no answer equation. The 4-man slip was kept busy taking every single opportunity as the batters kept edging the South African seam bowlers prodding at angle deliveries with hard hands.
Only Kamindu Mendis and Lahiru Kumara recorded double digits , whilst the rest were credited with only telephone number figures. Marco Jansen inswinger to Chandimal, which rattled his stumps and would have had the best in the bowled . It was an unplayable rare delivery. Angelo Mathews, looking at his dismissal on the cadibility screen, will be kicking himself for the irresponsible shot he executed as a top-class international legend. Kamindu Mendis was trapped with a fourth stump delivery by Coetzer , his weakness exposed driving at a ball that should he should have not played at. Pathum Nissanka and Dimuth Karunaratne were scalped by the batters prodding at deliveries with an angel bat . Dhananjaya de Silva played on to his stumps, trying an expansive drive for a back of a length delivery.
On all fairness, Sri Lankan faced this high quality of seam bowling on a night mare of a pitch , we all know the old fact that batting in South Africa is difficult, especially facing the new ball and expertise advice given is the first one hour facing the new cherry is challenging. South Africa is 132 for 3 wickets in their second essay.
They now have a lead of 281 runs with 7 wickets in hand , and finally, I guess our readers don’t need a rocket scientist to tell you in what direction this game is heading with 3 full days left. May be mother nature can bail Sri Lanka out of the hole they dug themselves into.
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