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Advantage South Africa as rain plays spoilsport in Sri Lanka on Day 5, 2nd Test

Dilruwan Perera took the wicket of Dean Elgar before the clouds opened up.

Rain-at-SSC
Rain at SSC © AFP

 

By R Vishal

Jul 28, 2014

Persistent rain at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) in Colombo forced an early Lunch on the final day of the second Test. As things stand, South Africa would enjoy the current state of things. A draw would ensure that that the Proteas win their first Test series in Sri Lanka in 21 years. It was rain that played spoilsport in the latter part of the days’ play yesterday as well and weather forecast does not look that great for the rest of the day either.

The overnight batsmen, Quinton de Kock and Dean Elgar started things off cautiously as the wicket was still offering plenty of turn. The pitch report read that the turn was going to venomous through the day and Dilruwan Perera showed the first glimpse of it. Perera’s flighted delivery pitched on middle stump, spun away from the left-handed Elgar. The batsman was trying to defend the ball but a tinge of bounce breached his defence and hit the top of the off-stump. Elgar was stunned and was trying to decipher what had hit him.

De Kock was positive from the time he came to the crease. Even Rangana Herath going strong on Day four didn’t faze the young wicket-keeper batsman and the story was the same in the first session too. Skipper Hashim Amla looked solid too and flicked a Perera off his hips to the square leg fence.

Brief scores:

Sri Lanka 421 (Mahela Jayawardene 165, Niroshan Dickwella 63; Vernon Philander 2 for 52) & 229 for 8 decl. (Upul Tharanga 30, Kumar Sangakkara 72, Angelo Mathews 63*; Morne Morkel 4 for 45, Dale Steyn 2 for 59) lead South Africa 282 (Faf du Plessis 36, Hashim Amla 139*, AB de Villiers 37; Dilruwan Perera 5 for 69, Rangana Herath 4 for 71) & 55 for 2 (Quinton de Kock 28*; Rangana Herath 1 for 7) by 314 runs.

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(R Vishal is a journalist and an alumni of the Asian College of Journalism. He can be followed on Twitter @vishhell)

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