Errors mean more than achievements as Lankans level series

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

Hashim Amla scored another century. Ryan McLaren delivered another telling bowling performance. But SA did not claim another victory. Instead, Sri Lanka squared the one-day series in Pallekele yesterday.

The home side seemed bound for 300 before they were dismissed 267 in 49.2 overs. SA should have forged far closer to their target than the 180 they were bowled out for in 38.1 overs, which gave Sri Lanka victory by 87 runs.

Errors were more significant than achievements in yesterday’s result, which means the series hinges on the last match in Hambantota on Saturday. And the home side may have an advantage going into the decider.

Dale Steyn left the field after bowling 2.3 overs having had his right thumb smacked by a vicious drive from Tillakaratne Dilshan, whose 86 was Sri Lanka’s top score.

X-rays revealed nothing more than bruising, but Steyn - who came to the crease to help Amla reach his century in a game SA had, by then, all but lost - winced every time his bat hit the ball. Whether he will be fit to play on Saturday is a key question.

Amla added 101 to the 109 he scored in the first match of the series in Colombo on Sunday, when SA won by 75 runs. Just like he did at the weekend, Amla showed an impressive command of the conditions and the opposing bowlers. His timing was sublime, his shot selection uncannily unerring. If anything, yesterday’s innings was even better than Sunday’s.

Including the 100 he made against India in the second ODI at Kingsmead in December, Amla has scored three centuries in his last four innings in the format.

Yesterday’s effort was also the first of Amla’s 14 ODI tons scored in a losing cause - which happened because the only decent support he received came from AB de Villiers, who scored 29 and shared a third-wicket stand of 75, and Steyn, whose 23 helped build the eighth-wicket partnership to 53. None of the rest of SA’s batsmen reached double figures.

Instead, too many of them were undone by the part-time but nuggety bowling of Dilshan, who used a responsive pitch well to take 3/40, and the sidewinding Lasith Malinga, who claimed 4/24.

Dilshan’s first victim was De Villiers, whose heave to long-on in the 20th over started a slide that claimed five wickets for 26 runs.

Cruel as it would be to blame SA’s best player for the descent to defeat, De Villiers’ dismissal was where their visitors’ challenge went off the rails.

“We didn’t have enough partnerships,” De Villiers admitted. “I got out to a soft dismissal and we lost our way. We have 11 batsmen in the team, but when I get in I should be going big.”

Malinga started SA’s problems by cleanbowling Quinton de Kock in the third over. He also had a flapping Jacques Kallis caught behind for one - the only run Kallis has scored in two innings in which he has faced a total of nine balls - and removed Amla in the 38th over with a full toss that the centurion slapped to mid-on.

McLaren ripped through the Lankans middle order, taking all of his wickets in the throes of the home side losing 5/11 in what became the final 20 balls of their innings.

It was another steady rather than spectacular performance from a bowler as unflashy as he is efficient. Now, if more of his teammates would follow that lead SA could find a way to win the series in Hambantota on Saturday.