Dhananjaya de Silva – Bulletproof Truth

2nd Test preview: Less a contest than a fight for survival

If Sri Lanka put up anything like a fight, they should be farewelled as heroes and awarded their country’s highest honour on their return home.

Telford Vice | Johanneburg

MANY will remember the Centurion Test for Faf du Plessis’ 199, Wiaan Mulder’s sturdy performance with bat and ball, Lutho Sipamla’s ballsy rebound from a meh beginning, South Africa’s innings victory and, of course, the Sri Lankans lurching from one injury crisis to the next. Fewer will recall that South Africa were chasing the game until almost an hour into the second day.

Sri Lanka’s first innings of 396 is the third-biggest total made by any team against South Africa at Centurion, and the Lankans’ biggest in a country where they have reached 300 only eight times but been dismissed for fewer than 200 on 14 occasions — five times at Centurion itself. So this effort represented significant progress in their coming to terms with a pitch that is nothing like anything they would have learnt to bat on, and which has led to the undoing of almost every visiting team who have played Tests there.

What might have been had five Sri Lankans, four of them frontline bowlers, not been sidelined by assorted mishaps and calamities? We will never know. The Wanderers would have presented an opportunity to answer the question had Dinesh Chandimal, Kasun Rajitha, Lahiru Kumara, Dhananjaya de Silva, Suranga Lakmal and Oshada Fernando not all been ruled out of the second Test. And it could get worse: Wanindu Hasaranga’s selection is subject to a fitness test.

It was seen as something of a miracle, especially by South Africans, when Dimuth Karunaratne’s team became the first Asian side to win a Test series in the country in February 2019. It wasn’t magic, of course: they played the better cricket. Not least Kusal Perera, who delivered among the most epic innings the game has seen in scoring an undefeated 153 in his team’s one-wicket win at Kingsmead. It should shock South Africans that Sri Lanka didn’t even need Perera to chase down their target of 197 to claim the St George’s Park Test by eight wickets. Likewise that Vishwa Fernando’s dozen wickets at 18.91 in the two matches was three more than Kagiso Rabada managed at 29.50. It’s a telling comparison considering each bowled 62.3 overs.

At Centurion, Perera — now opening, having batted at No. 5 in 2019 — made 16 and 64 and Fernando took 3/129. Those figures don’t reflect poor performances, but they are a long way from their matchwinning exploits of not quite two years ago. Happily, Perera and Vishwa Fernando are still in the mix. But it’s difficult to see them sparking the kind of revolution Sri Lanka would need to win at the Wanderers. That really would be a miracle.

Why should South Africa contemplate changes to an XI that has won so emphatically? If there was a case to be made for a departure from the Centurion side, it was that Rabada is back from a groin strain. But team management said on Saturday he would not be considered to ensure his readiness for the upcoming series against Pakistan and Australia. It’s a long shot, but that might open the door for the left-arm Beuran Hendricks, who represents a refreshing change from the home side’s otherwise steady stream of right-arm fast.

If it seems that there is too much dwelling on the past in this preview, which is after all meant to offer a look ahead to the next match, that’s because it’s hard to isolate the context of a match that promises to be less a contest between teams as a fight for survival by one of those teams. There is an unfairness about what the Sri Lankans are being asked to do, considering the wider circumstances. How could they possibly give a credible account of themselves when their ranks have been decimated by injury, and in the midst of a pandemic no less? The South Africans, meanwhile, would be forgiven for feeling queasy about being forced to throw punches at opponents who have a knee on the canvas and both arms tied behind their backs.

If the visitors put up anything like a fight, they should be farewelled as heroes and, on their return home, be awarded the Sri Lankabhimanya — or the Pride of Sri Lanka — the country’s highest honour. It is bestowed on “those who have rendered exceptionally outstanding and most distinguished service to the nation”. Certainly, they have fulfilled that criterion. But, like everything else about this tour, even this will not be simple: only five Lankans can hold the award contemporaneously.

When: Sunday January 3, 2021. 10am Local Time

Where: The Wanderers, Johannesburg

What to expect: A grinch of a pitch. Graeme Smith reckoned opening the batting at the Wanderers was tougher than any other job in cricket anywhere else, and it’s difficult to argue otherwise. The booming bounce and sneaky sideways movement eases slightly on days two and three. There is, at least, a downward sloping, lightning fast outfield to look forward to. But also variable bounce as the surface ages. And if the ever present cracks open up … look out.

Team news

South Africa: Mark Boucher is an old-fashioned cricketer, and old-fashioned cricketers don’t fiddle with winning XIs. Boucher said after the Centurion Test that he wasn’t about to tamper with a batting unit that had amassed 621, that he didn’t fancy an all-pace attack, and that Rabada’s return was not certain. An unchanged side seems the most likely outcome. Unless Hendricks is preferred to Anrich Nortjé, who is nursing a bruised foot. Raynard van Tonder, who was highly unlikely to play, is out of the reckoning anyway with a broken finger.

Possible XI: Dean Elgar, Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen, Faf du Plessis, Quinton de Kock, Temba Bavuma, Wiaan Mulder, Keshav Maharaj, Anrich Nortjé, Lutho Sipamla, Lungi Ngidi.

Sri Lanka: Do they have 11 fit players? That’s not entirely an unserious question considering the epidemic of injuries that raged through Sri Lanka’s ranks at Centurion. Minod Bhanuka and Asitha Fernando should make debuts, and Dushmantha Chameera could crack the nod. If Hasaranga isn’t fit, Dilruwan Perera or Lasith Embuldeniya will likely be selected.

Possible XI: Dimuth Karunaratne, Kusal Perera, Lahiru Thirimanne, Kusal Mendis, Minod Bhanuka, Niroshan Dickwella, Dasun Shanaka, Wanindu Hasaranga, Asitha Fernando, Dushmantha Chameera, Vishwa Fernando.

What they said

“We had a convincing win in the first Test, but we know there’s a few red flags going into the second. Even though we scored 621 we shouldn’t take the hard work of batting for granted. We’ve got to be aware that we faced an attack that was affected by injuries. We’re mindful of that; we know we need to start afresh.” – Dean Elgar warns Sri Lanka not to expect any favours.

“Our bench is very strong, so I think we will be able to field a side that will compete with the South African team.” – Dimuth Karunaratne makes a profound prediction. Would that it comes true.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Bavuma’s 0.1 foggy seconds

“I guess me walking prematurely, before the umpire had made a decision, probably was not the cleverest of things.” – Temba Bavuma

Telford Vice | Johannesburg

FOR three hours, nine minutes, 59.9 seconds and 124 deliveries at Centurion on Sunday and Monday, Temba Bavuma was the epitome of the modern Test batter.

He hustled and bustled. He played strokes as crisp as a new cotton shirt. He ran like the wind that wasn’t there to lighten the heavy heat of a Highveld midsummer’s day. He was as sure of foot as he was of mind. He was deft and decisive, and he was 71 not out in a stand of 179 with Faf du Plessis.

Then came the 0.1 seconds it took Bavuma to decide what to do about the 125th ball he faced. Dasun Shanaka’s shortish, widish delivery was an invitation to have a go. Bavuma obliged, cutting hard. Niroshan Dickwella caught the ball and gleefully appealled. Marais Erasmus was unmoved. Bavuma thrust his bat under his arm in a movement as sharply defined as everything else he had done, jagged his heels square of the crease, tilted his head backward, and strode off the ground steaming with disappointment.

He had crossed the boundary by the time the broadcaster’s gizmos revealed he had not hit the ball; that the edge of his bat had come nowhere near it, in cricket-speak. Which means he missed it not by much, but that he clearly missed it. So why walk? Or why not wait to find out what the umpire thought?

“It was nice to get runs under the belt; to get the confidence flowing,” Bavuma said in a video file released by CSA on Friday. “I would have wanted to score a lot more runs. The opportunity was there. I guess me walking prematurely, before the umpire had made a decision, probably was not the cleverest of things. But it happened in the spur of the moment.”

More happily for South Africa, Bavuma’s strange dismissal was but a blip on their march to victory by an innings and 45 runs inside four days — their only success in the four Tests they played in 2020. And that after Sri Lanka had scored 396 in their first innings, their highest total in South Africa. The home side’s response, helped by injuries to much of the Lankans’ frontline attack, was 621.

“We were able to bring the game back through strong performances, led by the batters,” Bavuma said. “There hasn’t been a lot of consistency or confidence in our batting. So the pressure was on the batters, especially considering they are the senior guys in the team, to step up and lead the way.”

South Africa’s attack had just a dozen caps worth of experience going into the match, and it took them time to settle in. “In the first innings, it wasn’t our best bowling effort,” Bavuma said. “The second innings [when Sri Lanka were dismissed for 180] was totally different … in terms of the discipline, intensity and ruthlessness that we showed.”

The second Test starts on Sunday at the Wanderers, where conditions are likely to be similar to those at Centurion. What would Bavuma change about South Africa’s approach? “Not a lot, to be honest. The challenge will be, if you do get in, to make sure you go and get the big score to be able to put the team in a good position.”

It seems the South Africans won’t want for opportunities to do so. Word from the Sri Lanka camp on Friday was that Suranga Lakmal will not be over the hamstring injury that kept him out of the first Test and will join Dhananjaya de Silva, Dinesh Chandimal, Kasun Rajitha, Lahiru Kumara and Oshada Fernando on the sidelines. Wanindu Hasaranga, who made a promising debut at Centurion, is to undergo a fitness test on Saturday.

South Africa have also had their mishaps, though they have been nowhere near as damaging to the cause. Glenton Stuurman has been released from the squad because of a quadriceps strain, a release on Friday said. That follows Migael Pretorius being let go on Wednesday after injuring a shoulder. It’s plausible that the two uncapped players hurt themselves by trying too hard to be noticed during training sessions. But their franchises, the Warriors and the Knights, would be justified if they were unhappy that players they sent to the highest level fit and healthy are coming home injured.

Not that Bavuma will be thinking of those who are no longer around as he looks to add a second century to the 14 half-centuries he has scored in his 68 Test innings. The closest he has come so far was at the Wanderers — his home ground — in March 2018, when Australia’s dismissal of South Africa left him marooned on 95 not out. As positive as the recollection of his performance in that innings will be, that wasn’t enough for Bavuma: “I’d like to create more memories; there is a feeling of unfinished business.”

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Centurion’s contrasting captains

“As a captain I’m trying to keep the team together and get them ready for the second Test.” – Dimuth Karunaratne

Telford Vice | Centurion

IF captaincy is partly about contrasts, you would struggle to find a pair of captains with as starkly contrasting stories as Quinton de Kock and Dimuth Karunaratne after the first test between South Africa and Sri Lanka at Centurion on Tuesday.

De Kock had the Test leadership thrust upon him despite his and Graeme Smith’s assurances that the captaincy of South Africa’s white-ball sides, on top of his heavy workload as the wicketkeeper and a key batter, was someone else’s job in the wake of Faf du Plessis stepping down in February. Not only was the Centurion match De Kock’s first as a Test captain, it is the only time he has been at the helm of a first-class team — in his 77th match at that level.

Karunaratne played 45 first-class matches before he was put in charge of a team: Sri Lanka A against their South Africa counterparts at Kingsmead in June 2012. He was back in Durban in February 2019, this time captaining the Test side, to preside over the first of the two most famous victories by an Asian team in South Africa. Another win at St George’s Park made Sri Lanka the only subcontinent side to win a Test series in the country.

Would Karunaratne lead his team to another triumph this time? That seemed a little less likely when Angelo Mathews withdrew from the tour, and more so when Suranga Lakmal was ruled out of the Centurion Test. Both had hamstring problems. Winning became unthinkable when Dhananjaya de Silva, Kasun Rajitha, Lahiru Kumara, Wanindu Hasaranga and Dinesh Chandimal were all injured during the first three days at Centurion. de Silva, Kumara and Rajitha have since been removed from the equation for the second Test at the Wanderers, which starts on January 3.

“As a captain it’s not easy for me,” Karunaratne said after South Africa completed their triumph by an innings and 45 runs after lunch on the fourth day. “If you don’t have bowlers to bowl in these conditions … [Dasun] Shanaka played as a fourth seamer and a batsman. Unfortunately he had to bowl many over because our two key bowlers were injured.”

Now what? The start of the second Test is six days away. What can Karunaratne do between now and then? “As a captain I need to get the message through that the series isn’t over yet,” he said. “We have another game to go. We’ll have plenty of conversations about the issues. As a captain I’m trying to keep the team together and get them ready for the second Test.”

De Kock had captained South Africa in eight ODIs and 11 T20Is before the Centurion Test. But white-ball leadership is surely inadequate preparation for holding a Test team’s reins? Just the opposite, it seems.

“It was a little bit easier,” De Kock said. “You have more time to think about things than in the other formats. But it also helps that I have some good leaders in my team. When I do need help I can go to them for advice. The likes of Dean [Elgar], Rassie [van der Dussen], Temba [Bavuma], Faf [du Plessis]. They’re a big help out there when I need them.”

De Kock has played 216 matches for South Africa, 177 of them in the company of Du Plessis. And 101 of those with Du Plessis as his skipper. “I’ve never captained a first-class game before, but I’ve been next to Faf for most of my Test career,” De Kock said. “I’ve learnt a lot from him, so I felt pretty much at home. I kind of knew what it was all about. It was pretty simple out there, to be honest.”

Good thing, for his own sake, that Karunaratne wasn’t around to hear that.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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What happens when Test cricket gets ugly

South Africa ended a difficult year by playing some of their most impressive cricket, but they deserved better than this pitiful spectacle.

Telford Vice | Centurion

NOT until they were required on the field did Sri Lanka show their faces at Centurion on Tuesday. While South Africa took to their half of the outfield to warm-up for the fourth day of the first Test, the visitors either sulked or licked their many wounds in the nets, depending on your preferred view. Or they were away from all eyes because they would resume 160 behind with an uncertain number of wickets in hand, and needed all the batting practice they could get.

At lunch, when the Lankans were 77 behind and seven down, Dushmantha Chameera and Asitha Fernando appeared on the field to bowl on one of the unused pitches. There was a spring in their step that had been robbed from Dhananjaya de Silva, Kasun Rajitha, Lahiru Kumara, Wanindu Hasaranga and Dinesh Chandimal. They had all suffered injuries on the first three days, but only de Silva had been ruled out — for the rest of series.

Cruelly, on another strip on the other side of the match pitch, Kagiso Rabada, freshly returned from a groin injury, bounded in like a man who couldn’t wait for the next time he would be in the XI. That will be on January 3, when the second Test starts at the Wanderers.

The last of the five wickets that fell in the morning belonged to Vishwa Fernando, who was run out in the last act of the session in the throes of confusion no doubt exacerbated by Hasaranga’s knee or ankle injury. Hasaranga ditched his bat, pads and gloves at the boundary, and began hobbling up the 48 steps to the dressingroom.

The second session began with Aiden Markram bowling from one end and Keshav Maharaj from the other — perhaps in a bid to revitalise the over-rate — and with Hasaranga at one end and Rajitha at the other. A pitiful spectacle unfolded with neither batter able to run, made even worse when they forget they were unable to run.

South Africa lost patience with the softly-softly approach after six overs of spin, and Lutho Sipamla steamed in — and Hasaranga hit him for fours through long-off, gully and down the ground. A menacing over from Anrich Nortjé followed, in which Rajitha leapt about like a lizard trying to escape a jam jar and scored no runs.

Hasaranga went two balls later, heaving Sipamla to long-off. His 59 came off 53 balls, and 54 of it flowed in sixes and fours. And with him went a lot of guts and grit. It took six more balls to end the match, which happened when Rajitha blipped Norjé to gully.

Wiaan Mulder, who had two catches dropped in the first session, added two wickets to the three he took in the first innings, and looked throughout like he wasn’t playing in only his second Test. He will play many more.

It hadn’t been Test cricket’s finest three hours. South Africa had claimed an emphatic victory, by an innings and 45 runs, but at what cost to the game? If this had been a boxing match, it would have been stopped in the second round. If it had been a football or a rugby match, fresh, healthy legs would have been sent into the fray. But this is cricket, which in these circumstances seemed anachronistic and brutish.

South Africa, too, deserved better. They ended a difficult year by playing some of their most impressive cricket for several years. Faf du Plessis proved, again, what a peerless asset he is to his team. Dean Elgar and Markram represented the old and new guards with aplomb. Temba Bavuma shouldn’t have walked, but he had been superbly composed and decisive until that moment. Sipamla showed courage to come back from a flaccid performance on the first day and earned his respect the hard way. Already, Mulder has made a strong case to be regarded as South Africa’s first-choice allrounder.

But we will struggle to remember those bright points. And struggle to forget stricken players trying to give of their best when they were far from their best. It is not a pretty memory.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Arthur on a mission to save cricket from Covid

“Luckily we brought 21, otherwise Grant Flower would be batting at No. 3 and I’d be batting at No. 4 in the next Test.” – Mickey Arthur

Telford Vice | Centurion

MICKEY Arthur is a man on a mission after his Sri Lanka team were reduced to seven, possibly six, fit players after three days of the first Test against South Africa in Centurion. A man on a mercy mission to save the game as we know it from Covid-19, you might say.

Having Angelo Mathews ruled out before the series and Suranga Lakmal for the match, both with hamstring injuries, was bad enough. But then, on Friday, Dhananjaya de Silva was taken out of the equation for the rest of the tour by a groin problem. He has been followed to the sidelines, temporarily, at least, by Kasun Rajitha, Lahiru Kumara and Wanindu Hasaranga. Dinesh Chandimal may join them with an as yet undisclosed issue.

“We’ve picked up a huge amount of niggles; ridiculous really,” Arthur said after stumps on Monday. The core problem, he said, was the uncertainty caused by the chaos the coronavirus is causing in cricket.

“We built up for a Test series with Bangladesh [which was due to start in October, but was postponed], and we had two residential camps in Colombo when Colombo was in lockdown,” Arthur said. “We built up to a Bangladesh series that didn’t take place. We then had to deload the players because we couldn’t keep them loaded up at their level.

“Then the South African tour was on and then off and then on and then off. So we had a residential camp where we got our guys back. The background to that was that Colombo was in curfew; the players couldn’t move out of their homes. So a lot of the conditioning work had to be done at home. Once the South African tour was on, the board very generously gave us a residential camp. We had two weeks where we started to load the players up again.

“And then, unfortunately, we had the LPL [from November 26 to December 16]. From our residential camp we lost our players for a month to the LPL through no fault of anybody; that’s just how it works. We got them back the day we left to go to South Africa. In terms of loads, conditioning and quarantining, where players weren’t allowed to do anything, you can throw all that in the melting pot. Every one of those factors probably plays a role [in the spate of injuries].

“Getting enough time for preparation is going to be key. We didn’t get enough time here. But that’s through no fault of anybody; it’s just how the calendar worked out. We knew we were going to endanger some guys, which is why we brought 21 players. I certainly didn’t think we’d only have seven fit players in this Test match, and our most senior players in Angelo Mathews and Suranga Lakmal not being available. That takes nine players away from us, which is very detrimental. I do feel we are going to be a couple more down when we have to select for the Wanderers Test [which starts on January 3].”

Would Arthur like to see the ICC introduce Covid substitutes, as it has done for players who are concussed during matches?

“I would love to have one here. We’re five guys down at the moment. Luckily we brought 21, otherwise [batting coach] Grant Flower would be batting at No. 3 and I’d be batting at No. 4 in the next Test. I do sit on the ICC cricket committee and I will be having a chat at the end of this Test. India lost one of their quicks today, and I suspect that more teams are going to lose quicks as it goes on because the rigours of the workload are just going to be too much with Covid around and the quarantine process.”

Umesh Yadav was taken to hospital in Melbourne after complaining of calf pain during the second Test against Australia at the MCG. As things stand, he wouldn’t be allowed a runner when he batted. The ICC abolished them in October 2011. Arthur concurred that the issue might need to be revisited.

“If the world was normal I don’t think we’d be in this situation,” Arthur said. “The conditioning would be perfect and the guys would be ready to go. With the world being abnormal at the moment, that is something that can be looked at. I’m pretty sure it will come up for discussion at ICC level at some point. If Chandimal is out we’ve only got six fit players to finish a Test match with, which is not good enough for anybody. It’s not good enough for our team, for the TV audience, our for our position.”

The day’s play ended with Chandimal, who is 21 not out with Sri Lanka 65/2 in their second innings — 160 runs from making South Africa bat again — leaving the ground on a buggy.

“He’s in the changeroom getting some treatment. I went in there and I thought, being the glass half-full that I am, that it was just cramp. I’ve got a feeling it’s something more serious.”

But Arthur hasn’t lost his sense of humour, as he proved when he was asked whether the visitors would look to attack on Tuesday: “We’re going to get 400 ahead and then Dimuth Karunaratne is going to get six wickets and win us the game.”

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Du Plessis demoralises decimated Sri Lanka

Did Dean Elgar cry when Faf du Plessis got out for 199? Don’t be silly. People as tough as Elgar do not have tear ducts.

Telford Vice | Centurion

THE voice from above was emphatic: “It’s too hot! Don’t fall over!” Makhaya Ntini, now 43, a touch more ballast on his frame than in his playing days, his burgeoning afro silvering at the edges, still has his boom. So when he stood in his commentator’s get-up in Centurion’s open air pressbox on Monday and yelled his advice in voluble, voluptuous isiXhosa at a veteran member of the dressingroom staff making his way across the outfield many metres below, no-one in the ground could fail to hear his warning.

That was an hour before the start of the third day of the first Test between South Africa and Sri Lanka. After lunch, Ntini was proved not only correct but also prophetic. It was 31 degrees Celsius and three Sri Lankans had fallen over. Three more, that is. They could argue that they didn’t heed Ntini’s words because they don’t understand isiXhosa.

Lahiru Kumara, bowling the sixth over of the second session and his eighth of the day, left the field with his hand hovering over his groin after one delivery. Then Niroshan Dickwella went down as if he had been shot. Turns out he had been: by a bee that had stung him on the back of his neck. A buggy parked beyond the cover boundary, the same one that had ferried Dhananjaya de Silva to the dressingroom on his way out of the series with a torn thigh muscle on Friday, nudged closer in readiness. But, after treatment on the field, Dickwella returned to the fray.

That drama had barely subsided when Wanindu Hasaranga, in trying to stop Faf du Plessis’ smear for four off Dasun Shanaka, crashed to earth on the extra cover boundary and struggled to regain his footing because of an ankle or a knee issue. This time the buggy was required. The same dressingroom attendant Ntini had addressed from on high in the morning hurried to Hasaranga to hand him a requisite face mask for the journey. If you wanted to be cruel, you could have said those Lankans who weren’t going down like flies were being zapped by bees.

An hour later Hasaranga appeared at the top of the stairs that lead from the dressingroom to the field, and made his way, gingerly, down all 48 of them. Two overs after that the debutant leg spinner was bowling.

Mickey Arthur looked increasingly ill with each passing calamity. He had suffered the withdrawal of Angelo Matthews before the tour and Suranga Lakmal before the match, both with a dodgy hamstrings. Then came de Silva and, on Saturday, the removal of Kasun Rajitha with a groin injury. And then Kumara, Dickwella and Hasaranga were stricken. Who could blame Sri Lanka’s coach if all he could do was stare apoplectically at the field while keeping his mouth covered by the crook of his elbow like someone trying to keep his lunch where it belonged?

How Arthur must have envied his compatriots, who welcomed Kagiso Rabada back from a groin niggle in time for him to be picked for the second Test at the Wanderers on January 3. The sight of Rabada loping languidly around the outfield during lunch must have been a punch in the visitors’ guts.

And all that before Faf du Plessis fell a solitary run short of completing his first double century, ending a stay of almost seven hours in his 113th innings. He batted at least as well as he did in his first, in November 2012, when he made an undefeated 110 to save the Adelaide Test. This time, he has given South Africa a fine chance of claiming their first Test win in four attempts this year and only their second in their last 10. He did so the way he has always played: with discipline and intelligence, and not a little style. He did not agree: “I’ve made a lot better hundreds — when attacks are at their hottest, when conditions are at their toughest. I wouldn’t put this close to any of those.”

This was Du Plessis’ first century in 18 completed Test innings. He shared record stands for South Africa against Sri Lanka with teammates who are among those who might replace him as captain when Quinton de Kock’s part-time appointment expires at the end of the summer. With Temba Bavuma he put on 179 for the fifth, and he added 133 for the seventh with Keshav Maharaj. Going by the way they batted, Bavuma would make a solid if risk averse leader while the bullish Maharaj might have to be talked out of taking too many risks. Bavuma made 71 off 125 balls, and Maharaj an unbeaten 74 — his highest score — off 105.

Bavuma’s innings ended bizarrely when he flashed at Shanaka, turned on his heel, tucked his bat under his arm, and walked. Except that Marais Erasmus hadn’t given him out and technology showed he hadn’t hit the ball. Why? He thought he had heard a sound, came word from the dressingroom. After 14 half-centuries in 68 innings, the agonising wait for Bavuma’s second century continues.

When Du Plessis heaved Hasaranga to mid-on, failing to clear Dimuth Karunaratne, who held the catch high, he threw his head back in disappointment. Up in the dressingroom, Mark Boucher did likewise. Dean Elgar, who knows this pain having been dismissed for 199 against Bangladesh in Potchefstroom in September 2017, buried his head in his hands. Was he crying? Don’t be silly. People as tough as Elgar do not have tear ducts.

Morné Morkel, meanwhile, must have been searching for an eraser. Four hours before Du Plessis got out, the fast bowler tweeted: “I’m penciling [Du Plessis] in for a double … perfect day for it.” Whatever the state of the day, it’s rare for South Africans’ praises to be sung by Australian citizens.

Du Plessis’ dismissal prompted the unravelling of an innings in which the last four wickets fell for a dozen runs in 10 deliveries. Two of them went to Hasaranga, whose fortitude for bowling in what must have been pain was rewarded with 4/171 from 45 overs.

South Africa’s 621 was the highest total made by any team in the 25 Tests played at Centurion, and their biggest since January 2016 — 78 Test innings ago. Only six times in their previous 439 Tests have they compiled a higher score.

Lungi Ngidi had removed Karunaratne and Kusal Mendis by the end of the fifth over of Sri Lanka’s second innings, when still another visiting player lay prone and in need of medical attention. But it seemed all Dinesh Chandimal required was a bandage applied to his achilles, which his pad strap appeared to be pinching.

Mendis and Chandimal ensured the Lankans endured no further hurt, in any sense. Or so it seemed until the close, when the dreaded buggy collected Chandimal at the boundary at the close, perhaps only to spare him a painful walk to the team bus. But, with only five wickets in hand, possibly, and 160 needed to make South Africa bat again, the damage has been done.

The day ended as it began, with Ntini booming from the press box, this time at a cameraperson stationed close to the fence: “You’d better come here! If you stay in the sun for much longer you’ll turn purple!” Many present laughed, but not the Sri Lankans. And not only because they don’t understand isiXhosa.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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A flurry of firsts on South Africa’s best day for a year

“I didn’t get to three figures, but I don’t play the game for that. I’m trying to set up the game for my team. I pretty much see my job as done.” – Dean Elgar on scoring 95.

Telford Vice | Centurion

IT’S the seventh over of the morning, the ball is not quite a dozen overs old, the pitch is alive with possibility, and Anrich Nortjé is hoofing towards the crease like one of the snorting steeds of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. He bowls … short, way short. Dasun Shanaka shovels the delivery over midwicket as if he was facing a kid in a park somewhere. The six takes Shanaka to his first half-century in his seventh Test innings: the first of the array of firsts that will stud the second day of the first Test at Centurion on Sunday.

The stroke’s audacity is still sparking the air itself two balls later when Shanaka steps wide of the stumps and sends an outrageous slash screaming over the backward point fence. Wisely, Nortjé turns on his heel without offering word or gesture.

The day did not start in accordance with South Africa’s plans. Sri Lanka were dismissed — nine wickets down because Dhananjaya de Silva will miss the rest of the series with a torn thigh muscle — for 396; their highest total in South Africa, whose team took almost seven-and-a-half hours and 584 balls to bowl them out, and employed a long stop to try and stop the bleeding.

The visitors added 56 runs in the 11 overs they faced on Sunday. And they would have made significantly more had Lutho Sipamla not found a way back from an ordinary first day as a Test player by taking the last three wickets in the space of 11 of his deliveries. Unlike on Saturday, when he put the ball more than he bowled it, Sipamla looked like he belonged. He finished with 4/76 — better figures than Dale Steyn, Shaun Pollock, Allan Donald or Morné Morkel managed in their first innings at this level. “He could have gone into shell, but the whole [South Africa] environment tells you you need to step up and he showed character,” was how Dean Elgar explained Sipamla’s success in an online press conference after the close.

By stumps, South Africa had forged to within 79 runs of parity. They will be confident of achieving it, less so of venturing far past it. There was more steel in their batting than has been seen for a long time. There was also some of the fragility that has made watching them a tense affair for their supporters. And why shouldn’t there be? For the first time since they played New Zealand at Eden Park in February 1999 none of their batters had a career average of above 40. But their 317/4 marked the first time in almost 15 months and in 28 innings in any format that they had passed 300 in a completed match.

So hope was kindled, especially while Elgar and Aiden Markram were sharing 141. It was the first time South Africa had enjoyed the stability provided by a century opening stand in 44 innings — their longest stretch without one since they failed to do so in their first 73 innings, from 1889 to 1914. The most recent previous instance was against Bangladesh in Bloemfontein in October 2017, when Elgar made 113 and Markram 143, and they put on 243.

This time Markram scored 68 before slapping a wide delivery from lusty left-armer Vishwa Fernando, coming round the wicket, straight to backward point. Elgar was out for 95, drilling a return catch to Shanaka, who found the wherewithal and the wingspan to hold it. Elgar and Markram hit all but 21 of their runs in boundaries. Elgar was on his best hard bastard behaviour. Markram batted as he might drive a Ferrari. Little wonder each, on being dismissed, stood there and pondered what might have been before stalking back to the dressingroom, where it is hoped attendants had padded the walls and hid anything that could be punched or kicked.

“That’s been the nature of the beast,” Elgar said, with reference to a pitch that kept the batters on their toes and the bowlers interested, when he was asked what went through his mind when he was dismissed. “Those kind of things seem to be happening. I didn’t get to three figures, but I don’t play the game for that. I’m trying to set up the game for my team. I pretty much see my job as done.”

Even so, he said, the conditions were not easily lived with for batters: “There’s been quite a lot of assistance for the bowlers throughout the two days. So I don’t think the scores we’ve had is a reflection of how the wicket’s played. It’s been a combination of some good batting and poor bowling. The margin for error if you’re a bowler is so small here, so if you miss your mark you’re going to go for runs because the outfield is so fast. But it’s a very good Test wicket.”

Quinton de Kock, the first South Africa player to captain, keep wicket and bat in the top five since Jock Cameron at the Basin Reserve in Wellington in March 1932, would surely catch fire on a surface that seemed to invite his positive approach. But he made just 18 before finding a top spinner from debutant leg spinner Wanindu Hasaranga too hot to handle and edging it to slip.

Three wickets had fallen for 20 runs across 26 deliveries. Sri Lanka had started by bowling too full, a mirror image of South Africa falling short too often, and they lost Kasun Rajitha to an undisclosed injury after he had bowled 13 balls. But they learnt their lessons well and added skill and guile to make up for their comparative deficit in muscle and malevolence.

Faf du Plessis and Temba Bavuma matched that with their own ability, and with discipline. Two of South Africa’s grittiest players showed plenty of that, and took their unbroken stand to 97. After each had faced 32 balls, Du Plessis was 11 not out and Bavuma was 23. But at the close Du Plessis was unbeaten on 55 and Bavuma on 41.

Whoever. Whatever. Their first and only order of business on Monday will be to keep doing what they did. Because South Africa could do with a few hours of quiet run-gathering. It’s up to Sri Lanka to bring the excitement, at least for the rest of this innings. Not for the first time, the fact that both teams still have skin in the game is what sets Test cricket apart.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Sri Lanka reach for records as South Africa stumble

“On this wicket, if you bowl that sexy length, a little bit short, it’s not really that effective.” – Wiaan Mulder adds a word to cricket’s lexicon.

Telford Vice | Centurion

SRI Lanka’s captain wins the toss and bats? In South Africa? Surely not. But that happens more often than might be thought, and it did again at Centurion on Saturday. When the visitors melted to 54/3 in the first 58 hot, muggy minutes of the match, Dimuth Karunaratne’s decision didn’t look too clever. When they reached stumps on 340/6, choosing to bat first was as brilliant as the sun slowly sinking through the haze beyond the western edge of the ground’s sweeping single stand.

In their other 15 Tests in South Africa, Sri Lanka won the toss eight times and chose to bat on half of those occasions. They lost three times, twice by an innings after being dismissed well inside the opening day. But, at Kingsmead in December 2011, they won by 208 runs — their first victory in this country.

At the close on the first day of the latter match, at Kingsmead, they were 289/7 — until Saturday their highest score on day one batting first, irrespective of who won the toss, in a Test in South Africa. Saturday’s effort is three runs away from becoming Sri Lanka’s biggest total in this country.

The matchwinner at Kingsmead nine years ago was Rangana Herath and his nine wickets. Sri Lanka don’t have not anyone of his mastery this time, but they do have Dhananjaya de Silva, whose batting shimmered with panache as he steamed towards a century before being undone for 79 by a hip injury sustained while taking a run. Forty-eight stairs lead from the boundary to the dressingroom at Centurion, and despite supporters on either side of him, de Silva winced as he negotiated each step. It was discomforting to see someone who had shown such dash and grace for more than two hours in the middle reduced to hobbling. He was to undergo scans on Saturday night to determine the extent of the problem.

Sri Lanka also have Dinesh Chandimal, who was already at the scene of the crime of three wickets falling across 37 deliveries when de Silva arrived. They had shared 131 when de Silva was cut down. Chandimal made a measured, elegant 85 before being removed by a vicious delivery from Wiaan Mulder that reared, took the shoulder of the bat and flew to slip.

Niroshan Dickwella, a wild slasher in previous encounters against South Africa, looked like he had grown up in an innings that reached 49 before he was trapped in front by Mulder — the best performer in a South Africa pace attack that had only a dozen caps among them before the match. The last time the fast men took less experience into a Test was at the MCG in December 1993, when Allan Donald, Fanie de Villiers and Craig Matthews held 11 caps between them. South Africa’s XI at Centurion has claimed 161 wickets, 110 of them by Keshav Maharaj and another 15 by Dean Elgar.

And all that inexperience showed, even though Mulder’s 3/68 in only his second Test was just reward for sustained, focused aggression. But the only other seam bowler who looked like he had spent lockdown itching to have a crack at batters in something other than the IPL was Anrich Nortjé, who seemed able to hit 150 kilometres an hour at will. More importantly, he didn’t sacrifice accuracy. Lungi Ngidi laboured so hard he changed his sweat soaked shirt inside the first hour, but he lacked zip. Lutho Sipamla, who likely made his debut because another new cap, Glenton Stuurman, couldn’t shake off a quadriceps strain, shared the new ball with Ngidi and suffered through a first spell of 0/38 from five overs. Sipamla improved in subsequent spells but he didn’t threaten as much as he would have wanted.

To stay in the game, or avoid having to mount a mammoth fightback in the second innings, South Africa will need to score more runs in their reply than they have in their last 13 Test innings — a lacklustre list that begins with the 191 India dismissed them for in the second innings at Visakhapatnam in October last year.

“There was definitely something in the pitch for the bowlers, especially with the new ball up front,” Mulder told an online press conference. “If we had bowled a little bit fuller with more balls hitting the stumps and on a fourth-stump line we could have been a lot more successful.

“It was unlucky for Dhananjaya getting injured, but that gave us a chance to come back. On this wicket, if you bowl that sexy length, a little bit short, it’s not really that effective. We searched a little bit today. But we’ve got a really young team. One of these days it will click for us.”

If the home side were in a funk, maybe what they did before the start of play had something to do with it. Having refused all opportunities to do what so many other figures in sport have done around the world to show their support for anti-racism — take a knee — the South Africans said they would raise a fist to express their solidarity with the same cause.

But when the moment came, directly after the national anthems, hopes for a dignified display disappeared. At first, only Quinton de Kock and Elgar cocked their elbows and thrust a fist into the sky. Their teammates followed suit several seconds and sideways glances later, by which time De Kock and Elgar must have been wondering what they had done wrong. So they lowered their arms. Only to put them up again. As a showing of will and wherewithal, the gesture failed. As a metaphor for South Africa’s performance, it was about right.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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