Avishka Fernando, who was supposed to cement his place as the opening partner to skipper Dimuth Karunaratne, suffered a minor ankle injury while fielding and did not come out to bat against South Africa, thus missing much need match practice ahead of the big tournament. Fernando was stretchered off the ground not to aggravate his injury, but later treatments have confirmed that he will be fit to play for the rest of the tournament while being a doubtful starter for the next practice match against Australia on Monday.
Kusal Janith Perera, who too was returning from injury did not capitalize with his opportunity to score runs, while Lahiru Thirimanne, on whom the selectors rely to carry along with experience for long innings failed cheaply soon after added salt to Sri Lanka’s batting woes again. Kusal Mendis and Angelo Mathews in the middle steadied the innings with skipper Karunaratne at the top who scored 87 off 92 balls after a slow start. Mathews 64 and Mendis 37 showed signs and sighs of getting back to form.
While both Dananjaya de Silva and Milinda Siriwardena failed to strengthen the middle order as expected, Jeewan Mendis showed signs of getting his place as an all-rounder with some quick runs and useful wickets.
However, Sri Lanka’s batting display was not enough to match competition to the victory target neither in par to bat out the 50 overs as they were all out for 251 in 42.3 overs.
Earlier Sri Lanka won the toss and put South Africa into bat and watched them rack up 338/7 without any real pressure.
In a tournament in which the bowlers were expected to play a huge role, Sri Lankan bowling attack was lacklustre and was able to take only seven of Proteas wickets. Suranga Lakmal and Nuwan Pradeep claimed two wickets each, while Isuru Udana, Jeewan Mendis and Dananjaya de Silva took one each. The country is expecting their ace-bowler Malinga to return directly to the tournament to make the X factor in Sri Lankan bowling attack.
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