South Africa vs Sri Lanka - Day 2 Review

Just one shy, De Villiers caught at point. Courtesy Associated Press

I said at the end of yesterday’s report that Sri Lanka needed to make the most of the moisture in the wicket provided in the morning. They were helped by Jacques Rudolph, who was batting with pain from a dislocated finger yesterday, adding to the fact that he isn’t much of a player... But he wasn’t the first to go, it was nightwatchman Dale Steyn, who was run out for a duck. There was never really a single in it, although Steyn getting out was more of a blessing, as it brought Hashim Amla to the wicket. Thankfully, Dean Jones was not on commentary when Hashim was at the wicket, but he seemed in a hurry. He hit two glorious cover drives, one the flashed through gully then the impressive Perera found the perfect length and line, got Amla pushing with hard hands and a good catch was taken at 3^rd slip.

Perera continued his impressive spell, getting Rudolph for a painful 44. Perera was looking threatening because he was getting the ball to dart off the wicket, and when there is variable bounce involved too, it becomes a handful. This brought Jacques Kallis to the middle, and started with 3 fours of one Perera over, his cover drives on one knee the ultimate definition on a cricket orgasm.... Or was it just me?

But then he ducked into a short ball from Fernando, which on reflection didn’t look too short,  and it didn’t ‘get up’ as much as he expected, but only ended up putting his head in the line of fire. Kallis got up and shook his head a couple of times and then collapsed. He took his helmet off and just collapsed. Then blood appeared on his ear, and as a superb slo-mo replay showed, the ball was smack-bang in the middle of the ear piece of the helmet, not the actual lid as such, and it basically jarred on his head on impact. Nasty. All sorts of South African team hierarchy were out there, trying to get their warhorse back up to speed. Or maybe they were checking if the stitching on the piece of road kill atop of his head was still okay... After a 10 minute delay, he continued on. Unsurprisingly, he never got settled again. He was dropped by keeper Silva, but soon after the lunch interval he played a similar shot to Amla, and perished as well. Game on at 5/173, with the out of form Mark Boucher due in next.

Thankfully for the Proteas, Sri Lanka couldn’t sustain pressure over long periods, the sign of a good test attack. They were good in patches, but in the de Villiers-Prince stand of 96, they put away anything loose with vigour. After Prince departed to Angelo Matthews, who later was taken away for scans on his groin, Boucher and de Villiers batted well, before AB was caught on 99. Sort of. He cut a wide ball from Perera, and the sub fielder Karunaratne took a low catch. De Villiers asked a took the fielders word, as it was very low to the ground..... By very low to the ground, I mean he claimed a half-volley at backward point, but good on AB for taking the fielders word, in the back of his mind would have been the incident where SL were sure he was caught behind on 64, and a faint hotspot appeared but there was enough doubt to keep him at the wicket.

Boucher and tailender Imran Tahir batted very well at the end of the day, getting the lead to 209. It was a funny days cricket, neither team dominating, but South Africa’s class shone through. Sri Lanka were valiant, but not finding the killer blow- a trend the I believe will continue during the three tests. Only time will tell.

The Globe Trotter,