Times Media
TELFORD VICE, Galle
SA clinched victory in the first test against Sri Lanka by 153 runs 45 minutes before tea on the fifth day in Galle yesterday. By then, the contest had effectively been over for two-and-a-half hours.
The match was all but decided 35 minutes before lunch when JP Duminy shambled in to bowl his first delivery of the day and served up a looping long-hop that pitched outside Kumar Sangakkara’s off-stump.
Sangakkara had batted for three-and-a-half hours for his 76 not out and looked well set for a century - the portents for which seemed set when he was dropped on 65 off Morne Morkel by a tumbling Quinton de Kock.
Moreover, Sangakkara was Sri Lanka’s last hope of saving the match after Mahela Jayawardene edged one of Morkel’s immaculate deliveries and was caught behind four overs before Duminy came on.
Sangakkara could have hit that wretched ball to Colombo, 105km to the north-west, where the second test starts on Thursday. Or he could have sent it all the way back to his hometown of Matale, some 166km to the north-east.
He looked like he was weighing those options as he wound himself up and waited for the ball - only to send it curving gently into the hands of Hashim Amla at short midwicket. Nevermind 105km or 166km. Try 30m.
For what seemed an age, a disbelieving Sangakkara did not move from the crease. If he had been on the golf course, he would have asked for a Mulligan.
The biggest crowd of the match fell as ghostly silent and motionless as the fort behind them has been for 426 years.
It was over. And, two-and-a-half hours later when Sri Lanka were dismissed for 216, it really was.
Morkel’s 4/29 was the star turn of the innings, 81 deliveries of seamlessly high quality bowling.
But the uber-bowler was Dale Steyn. His 5/54 in the first innings and 4/45 in the second dig gave him match figures of 9/99 - the best performance by a foreign fast bowler in Sri Lanka. Steyn bullied and bluffed and blew his victims away. He was every inch the world’s No. 1 bowler.
Between them, Morkel and Steyn had claimed four of the five wickets SA took for 51 runs in the morning session.
Amla, too, can be proud of the way his first test as captain unfolded. He set his fields thoughtfully and changed his bowlers cannily. In particular, a declaration that set the home side a target of 370 from 122 overs had proved a tempting lure rather than a shut door.
“If you lose the game, so be it,” Amla said of the decision. “I was extremely excited because the uncertainty was exciting.”
The win was SA’s first in three tests in Galle and their third in 11 tests in Sri Lanka. If they do not lose the second test, they will take back the No. 1 test ranking.
But wait; there is an asterisk. SA’s victory was achieved under the cloud of Vernon Philander being found guilty of ball-tampering.
Did Angelo Mathews feel his team had been cheated out of a fair chance to win the match?
“If they tamper with the ball, they get the better of it,” Mathews said. “It’s not within the laws and the umpires need to make sure it doesn’t happen again. It’s unfortunate.”
And Steyn? Did he think SA’s victory was tainted?
“Tomorrow it will say in the paper that we won this game regardless,” he said.
No, Dale. That’s not all it will say.
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