Day 1
South Africa 267/6
Sri Lanka
Suranga Lakmal picked up four wickets in an innings for only the second time in a 32-Test career as South Africa ended the first day of their Test series against Sri Lanka at a vulnerable 267 for 6. It was a strange, seesawing day in which it was hard to say if South Africa failed to make full use of good batting conditions or if Sri Lanka's bowling attack was too reliant on Lakmal to fully exploit a greener-than-usual St George's Park pitch. It may need South Africa to bowl on this surface for a complete picture to emerge.
Faf du Plessis trusted history, which said this was among the slower surfaces in South Africa, over the appearance of the pitch, and conditions proved to be a mixed bag. South Africa's openers added 104 and all of their top five got starts, but none of them carried on beyond 63. None of them were really at fault for their dismissals apart from JP Duminy, who top-scored and gave his wicket away in one of the hinge moments of the day.
Perhaps Sri Lanka could have had South Africa in a worse position had Lakmal enjoyed better support from the two other frontline quicks. It was instructive that when Sri Lanka took the second new ball - as soon as it became available - it was Angelo Mathews who shared it with Lakmal rather than Nuwan Pradeep or Dushmantha Chameera. It was also instructive that Sri Lanka's second-most successful bowler on the day wasn't a seamer but the ageless Rangana Herath, whose dismissals of Duminy and Temba Bavuma, both against the run of play, changed the complexion of the day.
When Duminy decided to sweep Herath in the 71st over of the day, South Africa were 213 for 3. Duminy was batting on 63 and was looking in the form of his life, driving like a dream through mid-off and extra-cover. The ball wasn't the safest to sweep. It was pitching outside off stump, but not far enough outside off stump for the batsman to be able to use his front pad as a second line of defence if it turned past his bat. Duminy missed, Herath hit front pad, and DRS could not save the batsman when he reviewed the on-field decision.
Four overs later, Herath hurried one on with the arm to beat Bavuma's back-foot defensive. This time the on-field decision was not out, and the ball looked like it may have been sliding down leg. Herath didn't look convinced himself, but with only 5.1 overs left for the reviews to be reset, Sri Lanka chanced their arm, and ball-tracking returned three reds and sent Bavuma back. South Africa had slipped from 213 for 3 to 225 for 5.
Each of Suranga Lakmal's four wickets was either caught behind or in the slips © AFP
Du Plessis and Quinton de Kock saw off Lakmal's first over with the second new ball, and when de Kock flicked and slashed him for two fours in the second over of his spell - his 20th of the day - it seemed that the day's efforts might have been telling on the fast bowler. But he was still more than capable of bowling the wicket-taking ball: de Kock took a single to bring du Plessis on strike, and out came the perfect line to pin du Plessis to the crease, the perfect line to make him poke, and a bit of outswing to graze his edge through to first slip.
The same ingredients had contributed to his first three wickets as well. All three came at the start of new sessions. South Africa went to lunch 92 for 0. Lakmal shaped one away from the right-handed Stephen Cook, then shaped another away from the left-handed Dean Elgar, and suddenly Dinesh Chandimal had two catches behind the wicket and South Africa were 105 for 2. Duminy and Hashim Amla then added 78, before Lakmal struck in the third over after tea, angling the ball into Amla and then moving it away to find his edge through to Chandimal once again.
Amla fell for 20, and his average dipped below 50 for the first time since November 2012. It had been a strange innings, his strike rate 26.31, made stranger by Duminy's fluency at the other end.
The left-handed Duminy scorched the very first ball he faced to the cover boundary, while the right-handed Amla took 56 balls to hit his first four, stepping down the track to whip Rangana Herath wide of mid-on. Duminy flowed onto the front foot and got his head over the ball at every opportunity, while Amla was often crease-bound after making that big back-and-across trigger movement. Duminy found the gaps without even trying, while Amla timed drives and punches sweetly but straight to fielders.
Still, it took a peach of a delivery to dismiss him. Lakmal always looked capable of delivering one. Less so Nuwan Pradeep and Dushmantha Chameera, who were wayward through the day, and released the pressure on South Africa's openers with a steady stream of deliveries at their pads in an otherwise quiet first session.
Aside from the odd flirt outside off stump, the shuffling, fidgety Cook showed an excellent understanding of his own game. He took full advantage of anything remotely near his pads, and scored the bulk of his runs - 41 out of 59 - through the leg side, primarily through flicks and glances as well as one sweep in front of square against Rangana Herath.
Elgar showed excellent judgement outside off stump, leaving 39 of the 86 balls he faced from Sri Lanka's three seamers, but was quick to pounce on anything overpitched, timing his drives sweetly through mid-off and extra-cover. Cook took the bulk of the strike during the opening partnership, facing 125 balls to Elgar's 89.
Day 2
South Africa 286
Sri Lanka 181/7 (57.0 ov)
Sri Lanka trail by 105 runs with 3 wickets remaining in the 1st innings
Vernon Philander and Kyle Abbott led South Africa's fightback after they were bowled out for 286 early on day two, giving Sri Lanka no respite as they went to stumps seven down for 181. Dhananjaya de Silva was batting on 43 when bad light brought play to an early close, playing some sparkling strokes through the on side and profiting from an ageing ball that wasn't moving nearly as much as it had done all the way up to tea.
But South Africa had inflicted plenty of damage by then, generating swing and seam movement off a greenish pitch that was now pockmarked by indentations made by the ball's repeated impact. Abbott and Philander exploited this to the fullest by consistently hitting a fullish length in the channel outside off. Only Suranga Lakmal - who completed his maiden five-wicket haul in the morning session - had managed this among Sri Lanka's frontline seamers.
Lakmal's long wait ends
0 Five-wicket hauls for Suranga Lakmal in 31 Tests before this. Only four bowlers have taken longer than Lakmal's 56 innings for their maiden Test five-for. Sanath Jayasuirya heads this list; his first five-for came in his 83rd innings.
2 Sri Lanka pacers have taken Test five-fors in South Africa before Lakmal. Chanka Welegedara took 5 for 52 in Durban in 2011-12, and Dilhara Fernando took 5 for 98 in Durban in 2000-01
There were few freebies for Sri Lanka's batsmen: by stumps, only 41.98% of their runs had come through the leg side, despite a spike after tea when the wristy de Silva flicked balls off his stumps and Kagiso Rabada fed Rangana Herath a succession of deliveries directed down the leg side. South Africa's batsmen, in contrast, had scored 59.09% of their runs in that half of the field.
Seam movement did for Kaushal Silva in the ninth over after lunch, after he had ground out 16 in just under two hours at the crease. Stretching out and following what appeared to be a full outswinger from Philander, he ended up playing a long way outside the line as the ball nipped back in and hit him flush on the front pad, in front of off stump. Silva and Mathews, both taking guard on off stump, had added 39 for the fourth wicket, keeping South Africa out for 13.5 uneasy overs after Sri Lanka had been reduced to 22 for 3.
Mathews had left well in the short period he spent at the crease before lunch, but was getting increasingly drawn into drives away from his body, his front foot not really getting too far forward or across. It brought him two crisply timed boundaries through cover, but also an ugly play-and-miss when Philander floated one fuller and wider.
Having been on the shorter side through his first spell, Rabada began bowling fuller when he came back in the second half of the post-lunch session, and persisted with that length even after Dinesh Chandimal had driven him to the cover point boundary. Reward arrived soon enough, as Mathews poked at one that left him, playing a long way outside his body, and edged to third slip. Rabada could have had another in his next over, when Chandimal nicked an away-swinger to the right of Quinton de Kock, only for the keeper to spill the low, diving chance.
It wasn't too costly a miss. Chandimal only added 11 to his score before Philander had him lbw with an in-cutter that had initially seemed set to shape away in the air. Herath, putting everything into his pulls and swipes through the leg side, added 36 for the seventh wicket before becoming the 9999th batsman out lbw in Test cricket. Missing an ambitious reverse-sweep, he gave his fellow left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj his first wicket of the day.
The first three Sri Lankan wickets came from avoidable shots, but they were also the result of the lines and lengths Abbott and Philander bowled, which magnified the smallest error. Dimuth Karunaratne drove away from his body, and Abbott found a bit of inward movement to find his inside edge into the stumps. Then Kusal Perera, lucky not to have edged a flat-footed swipe at Abbott in the previous over, slashed at Philander and nicked behind. Ten balls later, Kusal Mendis looked to drive Abbott on the up, failing to account for late away movement, and Sri Lanka were 22 for 3.
In just eight overs, Abbott and Philander had transformed the mood of the Test match. Till then Sri Lanka had been the happier team, by far, having taken only 8.5 overs to wrap up South Africa's lower order, sending them crashing from 267 for 6 to 286 all out.
It only took Sri Lanka only 4.4 overs to get their first wicket of the day, Nuwan Pradeep's short-ball barrage inducing a top-edged pull from Philander, caught at deep square leg. In Pradeep's previous over, Philander had gloved another pull, only for Dinesh Chandimal, diving to his left behind the wicket, to drop a sharp chance.
Chandimal, who had taken three catches on day one, soon got another opportunity as Lakmal produced the perfect fourth-stump outswinger to find Keshav Maharaj's edge. A dive to the right, in front of first slip, gave Lakmal his best Test figures.
Then came a moment of madness from Quinton de Kock, who, desperate to stay on strike, called Abbott for a non-existent second run before sending him back, giving him no chance of beating Kusal Perera's throw from deep point to the keeper. Pradeep then ended South Africa's innings in the most emphatic manner, going around the wicket and bowling de Kock with an inswinging yorker.
Day 3
South Africa 286 & 351/5 (80.0 ov)
Sri Lanka 205
South Africa lead by 432 runs with 5 wickets remaining
Stephen Cook's third Test hundred moved South Africa into a dominant position on a third day of rain delays and rapid scoring in Port Elizabeth. Sri Lanka caused a brief flutter with four wickets for 56 runs, but that only came after South Africa had moved to 221 for 1. At stumps, South Africa were 351 for 5, their lead 432 with two days remaining.
For most of the day, the only force that seemed capable of halting South Africa's march was the weather: Bad light and rain halted play twice, either side of an early lunch break, for roughly an hour cumulatively. Then, belatedly, Sri Lanka's bowlers began to find some success.
Nuwan Pradeep dismissed Amla with the last ball before tea, making him the 10,000th lbw victim in Test history. Dushmantha Chameera got Cook to nick behind in the sixth over after tea, before Dhananjaya de Silva, bowling his offbreaks from around the wicket to both right- and left-hand batsmen, began turning the ball appreciably. He got JP Duminy to edge to slip, and then had Temba Bavuma caught at short leg - Bavuma walked off without reviewing after being given out, despite replays suggesting there was no bat involved.
Rangana Herath could have had Quinton de Kock three overs later, but Dinesh Chandimal, possibly unsighted by the batsman as the ball spun out of the rough and between bat and pad, missed the stumping. De Kock and Faf du Plessis went on to add an unbroken 74 for the sixth wicket, at 4.82 per over, reinforcing South Africa's hold on the Test match.
South Africa dominated right from the start of play, taking only 7.5 overs to wrap up Sri Lanka's lower order, with Vernon Philander completing his 11th Test-match five-for, and gain an 81-run first-innings lead. Then Cook, courtesy century stands for the first and second wicket with Dean Elgar and Hashim Amla, ensured Sri Lanka remained on the mat.
Amla fell two short of a half-century, Pradeep trapping him on the shuffle, spearing one full and straight the ball after that shuffle had brought the batsman a cheeky four, a leg glance off an off-stump delivery. By then, Amla had batted as fluently as he has done at any point this season, delighted his fans with some vintage strokeplay including scorching drives through the covers and down the ground, his balance and timing inch-perfect.
After two days dominated by seamers, Sri Lanka may have hoped for continuing assistance from the pitch, but after some early help for the new ball - Cook and Elgar sent three edges streaking through gaps in the slip cordon in the first four overs - conditions seemed to ease out considerably. Given South Africa's lead, Sri Lanka couldn't attack for too long, and the innings eventually settled into a pattern of easily available runs against defensive fields.
Elgar was the dominant opening partner before lunch - which was taken half an hour early thanks to bad light and later rain - scoring 26 to Cook's 12 and hitting three fours including a muscular swat over midwicket when Suranga Lakmal dropped marginally short and a crisply timed back-foot drive down the ground off Angelo Mathews.
Cook caught up when play resumed, with three fours in two overs - not all of them entirely controlled - when the seamers began bowling short. With singles now plentifully available against the deep-set fields, Cook's strike rate climbed, and he reached fifty in style, punching Pradeep through the covers to bring up the landmark and slashing the next one backward of point for another four.
Elgar soon joined him in the 50s before falling to a miscued pull off Suranga Lakmal. By then, Cook and Elgar had brought up their second century partnership of the match. It was only the tenth time in Test history that an opening pair had achieved this feat.
South Africa began scoring even more freely with Amla at the crease: the second-wicket pair scored at 5.57 while the openers had gone at 3.60. Cook, who took 81 balls to score his first fifty, scored his second in 71 balls, as Sri Lanka's bowlers went through the motions. Cook went from 95 to 99 with the shot of his innings, a straight punch off the front foot against Chameera, before getting to his hundred the next ball with a trademark nurdle into the leg side for two.
South Africa's day began in the best way possible. Philander struck with his very first ball, shaping it away from the fourth-stump channel to induce a poke and an edge from Dhananjaya de Silva, who, on 43 overnight, had held Sri Lanka's hopes of narrowing South Africa's lead to manageable proportions. Five balls later, Lakmal realised he wasn't quite to the pitch of a fullish ball to drive, checked his shot, and popped a low catch to mid-on, giving Philander his fifth wicket.
Philander and Kyle Abbott beat the edges of Chameera and Pradeep frequently, but Sri Lanka's Nos. 9 and 11 managed to stretch their total by 20 runs along the way. There were a couple of audacious shots as well - Pradeep punched Abbott off the back foot to the point boundary, and Chameera hit Philander for a straight-bat scoop over mid-on. Eventually, having just got past the 50-ball mark, Chameera jabbed at an away-swinger from Abbott and nicked to first slip.
Day 4
South Africa 286 & 406/6d
Sri Lanka 205 & 240/5 (83.0 ov)
Sri Lanka require another 248 runs with 5 wickets remaining
A succession of soft dismissals left Sri Lanka in danger of a big defeat in the first Test despite their batsmen, almost without exception, looking comfortable at the crease in their pursuit of 488. No team has successfully chased more than 418 to win a Test match, but Sri Lanka suggested they were capable of giving South Africa a serious scare only to gift away four of the five wickets they lost on day four. Angelo Mathews, who witnessed two of these gifted wickets from the non-striker's end, was batting on 58 at stumps, and with him was Dhananjaya de Silva on 9.
A mix-up between Dimuth Karunaratne and Kaushal Silva ended an 87-run stand for the first wicket, while a moment of overconfidence cost Kusal Mendis his wicket after he had added 75 for the fourth wicket with Mathews. Kusal Perera and Dinesh Chandimal frittered away their wickets as well, and at stumps, 248 adrift of their target, Sri Lanka were left counting what-ifs, with an entire day remaining on a pitch that seemed to have flattened out entirely after starting out as a green seamer.
South Africa declared 10.5 overs into the morning session, after Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock had completed half-centuries and stretched their overnight partnership to 129. The declaration arrived when Rangana Herath had de Kock lbw for 69, missing a sweep against a ball that was probably too full and too close to off stump to play the shot against safely.
Both Sri Lankan openers missed out on half-centuries, but showed they had worked on the weaknesses that had caused their first-innings dismissals. Silva was eventually lbw for the second time in the match when Rabada nipped one into him after tea, but had till then shown improved balance and alignment while dealing with South Africa's concerted effort to attack his stumps, and had looked particularly good while driving straight. Rabada's extra pace and bounce had discomfited him a couple of times before that. Before lunch, he had gloved a rising ball, managing to drop his bottom hand and keep the ball down in front of Quinton de Kock diving to his right behind the stumps. Then, in the second session, he had taken a blow to the shoulder while ducking into a bouncer delivered from wide of the crease.
Karunaratne, apart from a couple of moments when he lost concentration, was alive to the danger of playing away from his body. The seamers looked to get him nibbling with the angle across him, and then tried to go around the wicket as well, but he handled both lines well, making sure his hands didn't follow the ball when he was beaten. He was just getting into stride when he was dismissed, having moved from 20 off 90 balls to 43 off 113. He had hit three fours in that period of acceleration, including a sweetly-timed flick off Philander and a reverse-sweep off Maharaj immediately after the left-arm spinner had got one to spit at him out of the rough.
The opening stand ended when Silva pushed Maharaj into the covers and set off immediately. Karunaratne responded after a moment's hesitation, and that little stutter was enough to find him short of his crease when he dived to beat JP Duminy's throw to the keeper.
Then Perera, his place at No. 3 in question after his dismissal to a wild slash in the first innings, fell to another injudicious stroke, top-edging a cut against the turn off Maharaj when he was getting consistent turn and bounce out of the rough.
When Mathews walked in, Sri Lanka had lost three wickets for 31 runs either side of tea, but he immediately showed the positive intent of a man with a fourth-innings average of 69.37, rotating the strike comfortably at the start before stepping out to his 17th ball and drilling Keshav Maharaj back past him for four. Rabada fed him a wide long-hop and a full-toss in the next over, and he put both away to the boundary, before a back-foot whip off Maharaj took him to 25 off 27 balls.
Then, with Vernon Philander returning to the attack, Mathews made a strategic retreat, scoring only six runs off the next 29 balls he faced. He was perhaps mindful that he needed to be at the crease when the second new ball became available on a pitch where the old ball was doing almost nothing. By then, though, Silva had fallen to the daftest of shots, taking on the returning Rabada's around-the-wicket attack by making himself room and looking to ramp over the slips. All he managed was an edge to the keeper.
Mendis' innings had always promised that sort of end. His 58 had displayed a vast range of shots - notable among them an off-drive off Philander and a number of sweeps off Maharaj - but also a tinge of impetuosity. In the over before his dismissal, he had run down the track to Maharaj and looked to hit him over mid-on, mistimed his shot horribly, and fortuitously managed to hit the fielder on the bounce.
Chandimal didn't learn from Mendis' close shave against Maharaj. Having already been dropped once while going after the left-arm spinner - Dean Elgar putting him down at short extra-cover - he tried it again, with the new ball 2.4 overs away, and spooned the ball straight to mid-on.
South Africa took the new ball as soon as it was due, and came very close very early. Abbott, starting the 82nd over of Sri Lanka's innings, caught Dhananjaya de Silva shuffling too far across his stumps, and Bruce Oxenford upheld his lbw appeal immediately. De Silva reviewed - perhaps more in desperation than any real hope of getting the decision overturned - and ball-tracking saved him, suggesting the ball would have carried on to miss leg stump.
Day 5
South Africa 286 and 406 for 6 dec beat Sri Lanka 205 and 281 by 206 runs
South Africa made full use of the second new ball to rip through Sri Lanka's last five wickets and complete a 206-run win in Port Elizabeth, an hour and 10 minutes into day five. Once Kyle Abbott broke through early to dismiss Angelo Mathews and Dhananjaya de Silva, there was little Sri Lanka's lower order could do. The margin of Sri Lanka's defeat belied how comfortable their top-order batsmen had looked on day four, and reflected how so many of them had thrown their wickets away.
Chasing 488, Sri Lanka started the final day 248 adrift with five wickets in hand and their last two recognised batsmen at the crease, one of them batting on 58. That man, Mathews, had added only one run to his score when Abbott nipped one in sharply and had a loud lbw shout upheld. Mathews had taken guard on off stump right through the Test match, and this probably played a major role in his dismissal. Jumping back and across, Mathews had to open up to access the ball that was jagging back into the stumps, and before his bat could come across to meet it, the ball had struck his retreating front pad, right in front. He reviewed more in desperation than hope.
A near-replay, down to the failed review, sent de Silva on his way 3.5 overs later. Again the batsman was standing on off stump, and again was forced to play across the line. Again the review returned an umpire's call verdict on height.
In between, Abbott had also dealt Rangana Herath a blow with a sharp lifter that struck him on the bottom hand. Having strapped up his fingers, Herath lasted a further nine balls before Vernon Philander had him caught and bowled, diving across the pitch to catch it low to his left, landing painfully on his arm, after getting the ball to stop on the batsman.
Kagiso Rabada got into the act next, finding away seam movement and extra bounce in the corridor to catch the shoulder of Dushmantha Chameera's bat. The last wicket went to Keshav Maharaj, who finished with a three-wicket haul that was reward for some skillful, tight bowling while getting through 29 overs on day four. He only needed to bowl nine balls on day five, the ninth an absolute ripper, turning past the outside edge of Nuwan Pradeep's defensive bat to knock back off stump.
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