A late blitzkrieg by Thisara Perera was not enough to overcome the failings of the top order, as South Africa won their first game of the series by 56 runs at the Pallakele stadium to keep the series well and truly alive.
Perera’s knock jolted some life into a Lankan innings that had threatened to fold far more meekly under the pressure exerted by an excellent South African bowling attack. Coming in at 81 for 6, with 223 being the target score, He blitzed 65 off 49 deliveries including a 35 run over off Robin Peterson, and gave brief hope to the Lankan supporters. His innings comprised of five sixes, five fours and a bucket load of luck, as he was dropped once, and was fortunate to survive a caught behind appeal during his stay. His luck ran out finally, when he mishit a delivery by Farhaan Berhadien to end any chance of a Lankan miracle. His performance aside however, the rest of the batting offered no resistance and allowed the Proteas to stay alive in the series.
Earlier, an excellent spell of bowling by Morne Morkel and Lonwobo Tsotsobe saw the Lankans get off to a disastrous start in their run chase. Tsotsobe, who came in to the South African team in place of Chris Morris, accounted for the top three Sri Lankan batsmen very quickly, including that of Kumar Sangakkara for a duck. The Proteas pacers looked much more at home on the Pallakele surface, getting sharp bounce and seam movement, and the Lankan batsmen were on the back foot right throughout.
Mahela Jayewardene survived a number of close calls as he put up a 50 run partnership with Dinesh Chandimal in an attempt to stabilize the innings. Both batsmen fell after getting starts however, leaving a lot of work still to be done for the men coming in after them. Those men were captain Angelo Mathews, playing his first game of the series, and debutant Angelo Perera. Neither lasted long, falling to irresponsible shots, and if it wasn’t for the late surge by Thisara Perera, the Sri Lankan innings could have ended much earlier than it did.
In the afternoon South Africa had managed to post a competitive score of 233 thanks largely to a late thrashing by David Miller. Having won the toss and elected to bat first, the Proteas started cautiously, but still lost regular wickets in the face of some tight bowling. Only Miller and captain AB De Villiers scored over 30 with the latter falling for 47 after having resurrected an innings in danger of collapsing.
The Lankans bowled a very good line and length for 48 overs, and found the outside edge of the batsmen frequently. Ajantha Mendis in particular was very good in his comeback match, picking up 3 wickets and going past 100 ODI wickets in the process. All that work was undone however in the last 2 overs, which leaked 39 runs; most of them courtesy of David Miller.
Miller became the first South African to score a half century in this series on his way to an unbeaten innings of 85. He struggled in the early part of his innings but had de Villiers to usher him through and grew in confidence as the innings went on. He scored 35 runs off the last two overs, including 18 off Malinga and managed to push the South African score to respectability.
Apart from the two of them the South Africans have cause to be concerned about the rest of their lineup. In Hashim Amla’s absence, they tried yet another opening combination by bringing in Quinton De Kock, who also took over the gloves from De Villiers. Apart from AB and Miller, none of the Proteas have scored over 30 in the series and they will want to remedy that.
The Sri Lankans on the other hand, will be worried about their middle order. The top four have been doing the bulk of the scoring, but when they fail like they did today, the youngsters in the middle are expected to step up. No one apart from Perera did so today, and they will have to remedy that soon if they are to close out this series in the next two games.
This was only South Africa’s second ever victory in an ODI in Sri Lanka. They will have to double that tally if they are to close out the series, which stands at 2 -1 in favour of Sri Lanka. The fourth match will be played on Sunday.
South Africa 223 for 7 (Miller 85*, Mendis 3-35) beat Sri Lanka 167 (Thisara 65, Tsotsobe 4-22) by 56 runs
