Sri Lanka vs South Africa: Faf du Plessis emphasizes the reasons behind the Proteas' hefty defeat
The Proteas skipper also appreciated their opponent's spin-attack.
South Africa and Sri Lanka played in the first match of the two-match series at the Galle International Stadium. The Proteas came into the match as the firm favorites, but the hosts brushed them aside by a mammoth 278 runs to take a lead in the series. While the bowlers bowled the Lankans out cheaply, their batsmen faltered to put up any sort of fight and eventually crumbled.
The home team put 287 runs in the first innings after which Faf du Plessis and Co crumbled for 126 runs, giving the Islanders a lead of 161 runs. Suranga Lakmal’s men stumbled to 190 runs in the second innings, which gave South Africa a target of 352 runs. However, they could survive only 28.5 overs in which they were bundled out for 73 runs. Rangana Herath and Dilruwan Perera picked up nine wickets between them.
That was always going to be a difficult total
Sri Lanka didn’t use their fast-bowlers as Herath, Perera and Lakshan Sandakan turned out to be enough for bowling the visiting team out. Meanwhile, Faf du Plessis reckons that conceding the first-innings lead turned out to be crucial in the context of the match. Nevertheless, he appreciated their opponent’s spin-attack.
“We’ve only got ourselves to blame for that situation. That [conceding the lead] was a big turning point in the game. You bat first on a wicket that was never going to be a high-scoring pitch – I think we had them at 115-5, and we let them to get to 287. Obviously, it was a big total.
Even though we bowled well in the second innings, that was always going to be a difficult total,” du Plessis was quoted as saying in Sportstar.
“The quality of spin in this Test match and how they controlled it was fantastic. So that’s where we’ve to improve, especially in these conditions where you’ve to make a play. That’s what we’ll look into ahead of the next Test match,” the Proteas skipper added.
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