South Africa complete 3-0 drubbing

by Rex Clementine

Sri Lanka’s T-20 woes have been well and truly exposed ahead of a major tournament as South Africa completed a 3-0 rout at RPS last night. Set a target of 121, the tourists romped home to a comprehensive ten wicket win with Quniton de Kock and Reeza Hendricks finishing the run chase with 32 deliveries to spare.

Only one other time Sri Lanka had lost a T-20 International by ten wickets. That was during the inaugural World T-20 in 2007 when they went down to Australia in Cape Town. That was with 58 balls to spare while this one was with 32 deliveries in hand.

The Proteas have been hardly tested in this series as they won the opening encounter by 28 runs, sealed the series with a nine wicket win and then rubbed salt into the wounds by completing the whitewash having won the dead rubber with ease.

Sri Lanka lost three wickets during the Power Plays and never recovered to post a competitive total with Kusal Perera top-scoring with 39 runs. Chamika Karunaratne hit an unbeaten 24 and stitched a 19 run stand for the ninth wicket to save the side from embarrassment.

Kagiso Rabada bowled a hostile spell taking a return catch in his first over to dismiss Avishka Fernando. In his next over, Bhanuka Rajapaksa was walking away from the stumps and he followed the batsman with a nasty bouncer. In the next ball, he gave away a boundary, and with Rajapaksa giving himself room for the third delivery, bowled a straight one with mean pace to send the stumps cartwheeling.

It was a superb display of fast bowling and having troubled Rajapaksa throughout the series, you can safely say, Rabada has found his bunny.

With the World Cup just around the corner, Sri Lanka are still in an experimenting mood and without a settled batting line-up, they are losing too many wickets in the Power Plays and then getting bogged down in the middle overs leaving too much for the tail to do in the slog overs.

The middle-order comprising Dasun Shanaka and Wanindu Hasaranga are in such a wretched form while the replacements the selectors are bringing in aren’t working.

Quinton de Kock and Reeza Hendricks posted half-centuries as they completed the run chase inside 15 overs. Their 121 run stand is the highest partnership in T-20 Internationals between the countries for any wicket.

De Kock was unbeaten on 59 off 46 balls with seven fours while Hendricks was 56 not out off 42 balls with five fours and one six.

There was nothing much the bowlers could do on a good batting track. The feature during the run chase was Kamindu Mendis bowling off-spin to the left-hander and then switching to left-arm orthodox spin for the right-handed batsman. He did not have great control but with exposure, the ambidextrous Richmondite could go places.