CAPE TOWN - FAF du Plessis’s golden summer continued at Newlands on Tuesday.
The Proteas Test captain, who has been relieved of the one-day leadership upon AB de Villiers’s return, has relished the freedom by scoring a bucket-load of runs during this on-going ODI series.
Du Plessis struck a career-best 185 – his second century of the series – to power South Africa to the highest ever total at Newlands. It was the also the first time the Proteas have scored back-to-back totals in excess of 300-plus in Cape Town.
The feature of Du Plessis’s innings was the ease with which he scored his runs. With the Sri Lankan attack not doing much in terms of trying to maintain the pressure by virtue of a disciplined line and length or any aggressive field settings Du Plessis hardly had to play a shot in anger.
His solidity at the crease also allowed South Africa to build hefty partnerships at the top of the order. Quinton de Kock (55 off 46 balls) and Du Plessis added 100 runs for the second wicket before the Proteas wicket-keeper was well caught at slip by the Sri Lankan skipper Upul Tharanga off Sachith Pathirana.
De Kock’s dismissal did nothing to stop the flow of runs though with Du Plessis and De Villiers adding a further 134 runs for the third wicket. De Villers struck a composed 64 off 62 balls before he shuffled across off stump and missed a straight ball to be bowled around his legs.
Du Plessis, though, simply carried on and on before falling just three runs short of Gary Kirsten’s all-time record score of 188 not out back at the 1996 World Cup.
The dismissal was more due to fatigue than anything else with Du Plessis hardly having the power to swing his arms through the line of the ball and was eventually caught by Asela Gunaratne on the long-off boundary.
The Newlands crowd certainly appreciated Du Plessis’s brilliance and rose in unison to applaud the Test skipper all the way back to the pavilion.
JP Duminy (20 off 22 balls) and Farhaan Behardien (36 off 20 balls) also chipped in at the backend to ensure South Africa would a post total that should be way out of the reach of this struggling Sri Lankan team.