South Africa succumb to a massive defeat against Sri Lanka in the first Test match at Galle International Stadium on Saturday. Sri Lankan spinners made a nuisance of the Protean batting line up as they won the Test match inside three days dismissing the visitors to a mere 73 runs in second innings.
This was South Africa’s lowest total in a Test innings. The main assassin of this brute spell of bowling was Dilruwan Perera who picked an impressive six wicket haul to humiliate the visitors adding to his four in the first innings. In all he clinched 10 scalps in this Test match.
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South Africa were set a target of 352 runs to win the first Test on the third day after the hosts were bowled out for 190 runs in their second innings. It was always going to be tough for the visitors n tricky sub continent conditions to achieve this target.
Spinners led by Dilruwan Perera led Sri Lanka to the win as only three South African batsmen reached double figures. Earlier, Lakshan Sandakan became Dale Steyn’s 421st test victim as Sri Lanka were all out for 190 runs in their second innings. The wicket took Steyn equal to Shaun Pollock as South Africa’s highest wicket taker in Test cricket. Sri Lanka had begun day three on 111 for four, leading by 272 runs at the Galle International Stadium.
Brief scorers: Sri Lanka 287 (Dimuth Karunaratne 158*; Kagiso Rabada 4-50) and 190 (Dimuth Karunaratne 60; Keshav Maharaj 4-58) beat South Africa 126 (Faf du Plessis 49; Dilruwan Perera 4-46) and 73 (Vernon Philander 22*; Dilruwan Perera 6-32) by 278 runs.