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Herath earns Sri Lanka shock win 0

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Ken

Diminutive left-arm spinner Rangana Herath took five wickets as Sri Lanka beat South Africa by 208 runs on the fourth day of the second test at Kingsmead on Thursday.

    It was Sri Lanka’s first test victory in South Africa in nine attempts and follows their defeat by an innings at Centurion in the first test. The islanders have also been through a 15-match winless streak since the retirement of world record wicket-taker Muttiah Muralitharan.

    South Africa were chasing a highly unlikely 450 for victory, but their batsmen once again let them down as they were bowled out for 241 with nine balls left in the day’s play.

    The hosts’ top-order collapsed dismally after lunch, slumping to 133 for six before AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn fought hard for two-and-a-quarter hours.

    Herath was the star performer, taking five for 79 in 30.3 overs, giving him nine wickets in the test and the man of the match award.

    But pace bowler Dilhara Fernando (13-3-29-2) can also take credit for bowling South Africa out in two-and-a-half sessions.

    De Villiers and Steyn added 99 for the seventh wicket and looked set to see South Africa through to stumps before Herath returned with a second new ball that was just three overs old.

    He quickly trapped De Villiers lbw for 69 with an arm-ball, ending a determined innings by the South African vice-captain. De Villiers faced 141 balls and he hit six fours and a six.

    Morne Morkel then slogged at part-time spinner Tillekeratne Dilshan, missed and was out leg-before for five.

    With bad light threatening to end play for the day, Herath then removed Steyn, for an impressive, fighting innings of 43, and last man Marchant de Lange (0) in the space of three balls to end the match.

    Sri Lanka were closing in on victory as the hosts collapsed to 136 for six at tea, Jacques Kallis completing the first pair of his test career as South Africa lost five wickets for 50 runs in the afternoon session.

Kallis faced six balls without getting off the mark, before top-edging a sweep at Herath into his helmet, from where the ball looped to short-leg.

Kallis, playing in his 149th test, was initially given not out by umpire Steve Davis, but Sri Lanka had the decision overturned on appeal.

Jacques Rudolph (22) had chased the fourth ball after lunch from Thisara Perera, edging a wide ball into the slips, where Mahela Jayawardene took another fine catch.

Hashim Amla looked set to play a major innings as he reached 51, but he dashed off for a quick single to mid-on off Herath, which was turned down by Ashwell Prince, leaving him stranded.

Prince was out for seven half-an-hour later when a lifter from Fernando forced him to edge a catch into the slips; and Mark Boucher battled hard before being trapped lbw by Herath, also for seven.

Rudolph and Amla had taken South Africa to 86 for one at lunch after being asked to chase what would have been a world-record winning score to prevent Sri Lanka levelling the three-match series.

South Africa comfortably reached 37 without loss before Fernando extracted steep bounce and forced captain Graeme Smith (26) to edge a slip catch to Jayawardene.

Earlier, Steyn took two of Sri Lanka’s last three wickets as the tourists added just 23 runs to their overnight total before they were dismissed for 279 in their second innings.

Steyn ended with figures of five for 73 in 20 overs to complete the 17th five-wicket haul of his test career.

    The third and final test is in Cape Town from January 3. 


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Category Cricket, Sport

Keeping it simple brings Philander fame 0

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Ken

Vernon Philander continued to make one of the most famous introductions into test cricket at Centurion on Thursday as he completed his third five-wicket haul in his first three tests for South Africa.
    Thanks to Philander’s five for 53, South Africa bowled Sri Lanka out for just 180 on the first day of the first test, the 26-year-old continuing in the same vein as his debut series against Australia last month, when he took 14 wickets in two tests.
    The seamer is the first South African to take three five-wicket hauls in his first three tests.
    Philander is not altogether new to South Africa’s national team, having played seven ODIs and seven Pro20 matches between 2007 and 2008, but he was considered ill-equipped mentally and physically for the rigours of international cricket and dropped.
    Since then, Philander has taken 151 first-class wickets at an average of just 17.80 to suggest his omission was ill-judged.
    “I just try to keep it as simple as possible. There was a bit of assistance there today and I tried to exploit it,” Philander told a news conference after the first day’s play at Centurion on Thursday.
    “For me, I just tried to bowl as if it was a flat pitch. Sometimes you get on a greentop and you think you should bowl bouncer, bouncer, yorker and then bowl the middle stump out. But the assistance is there, why try to bowl any differently?”
    Philander, who was educated at Ravensmead Secondary School in Cape Town, came through South Africa’s powerful junior cricket programme, representing Western Province Schools for three years (2001-2003) and SA Schools in 2002 and 2003.
    He is also a hard-hitting lower-order batsman who has scored two first-class centuries and averages 27.13 with the bat. Philander is also in talks with Somerset to represent them at the start of next summer.
    “It’s not finalised yet, but the talks are in final stages. It will be nice to experience their wickets before South Africa tour England next year,” he said.
    South Africa ended the first day of the test on 90 for one, just 90 runs behind, however Philander believes they still have work to do in order to take charge of the game.
    “Tomorrow morning there’ll still be something in the pitch and a lot depends on the overhead conditions. Obviously we hope the sun is out so it flattens the pitch. We still need to bat well and get through that initial patch,” Philander said.
    The Sri Lankans, according to wicketkeeper/batsman Kaushal Silva, are rueing the pre-tea collapse that saw them lose their last six wickets for 24 runs in 5.1 overs.
    “It was a hard task for us after losing the toss, especially with the kind of bowlers South Africa have and the pitch, but we did okay in the first two hours. It was only after the water break in the second session, when we lost three wickets in quick succession, that the game really turned.
    “The way Jayawardena and Samaraweera were batting, we were planning a score of 250-300 which would have been competitive,” Silva, who was the first-ball victim of a contentious caught behind decision on review, said.

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Category Cricket, Sport

Another injury blow for Sri Lanka 0

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Ken

The already-weakened Sri Lanka team have suffered another injury blow with key batsman Kumar Sangakkara splitting the webbing on his right hand ahead of the first test against South Africa starting on Thursday.
    Sangakkara split the webbing between the index and second fingers of his right hand during the Sri Lankans’ weather-affected warm-up match against an SA Invitation XI in Benoni at the weekend and was unable to bat.
    The absence of the 34-year-old, who is Sri Lanka’s second highest all-time run-scorer with 9167 runs in 103 tests, would be a huge blow for the tourists, who have brought an inexperienced side on their first tour of South Africa in nine years.
    Sri Lanka team manager Anura Tennekoon told Reuters he was confident, however, that the tough Sangakkara will be able to play in the first test at Centurion.
    “Sanga has split the webbing on his right hand, but it’s okay, he’s recovering well and, according to the medical experts, he should be fine for the first test,” Tennekoon told Reuters via telephone on Monday.
    Sri Lanka’s fast bowling prospects are less positive, however, after Nuwan Pradeep’s hamstring strain added to a terrible run of injuries amongst the pacemen.
    Nuwan Kulasekara, Dhammika Prasad, Shaminda Eranga and Suranga Lakmal were all ruled out of the tour before departure and the 25-year-old Pradeep is now likely to be joining them back home, Tennekoon said.
    “Nuwan Pradeep will likely have to return home and be replaced. The replacement hasn’t been decided yet because the selectors want to look at a few bowlers in domestic matches first. So it’s unlikely the replacement will arrive in time for the first test,” Tennekoon said.
    Sri Lanka have not won a test in South Africa in seven attempts and the home side’s vice-captain, AB de Villiers, admitted that the tourists held little fear for them.
    “If we get a good cricket wicket and we play good cricket, then they’re not going to stop us,” De Villiers told a news conference at Centurion on Monday.
    The batsman said the series represented an ideal opportunity for the South Africans to end an astonishing gap of three years since their last series win at home, over Bangladesh in 2008/9.
    “We need to get back to playing consistently good cricket for longer periods, that’s probably the reason we haven’t won at home for a while. We want to do that for the whole series against Sri Lanka,” De Villiers said.
    “My feeling is that test cricket is all about momentum and you get waves that are up and down. Whoever maximises their opportunities when they’re on top, when they have the opposition on the ropes, will win. You have to finish off the opposition, be aggressive, whether you’re batting or bowling,” De Villiers said.

Tags:
Category Cricket, Sport

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