Second Test, Day 2, Stumps
South Africa: 392 (Elgar 129, De Kock 110, Kumar 6/122) & 35/0
Sri Lanka 110: (Philander 4/27, Rabada 4/37, Maharaj 2/32)
South Africa lead by 317 runs
Cape Town - Kagiso Rabada and Vernon Philander ripped through the Sri Lankan batting line-up on an action-packed second afternoon at Newlands.
The duo claimed eight wickets between them with left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj also chipping in with two important scalps to dismiss the visitors for just 110.
In the process Philander also passed 150 Test wickets in just his 39th Test, with only Hugh Tayfield and Dale Steyn (29 Tests each), Allan Donald (33) and Shaun Pollock (36) ahead of him on the list of South African bowlers to reach the magical mark.
There was milestone for Rabada too with the young fast bowler claiming his 50th Test scalp this afternoon.
At the tea interval it never seemed that South Africa would enjoy a 282-run first innings lead as tje visitors crawled to 54/2 at the end of the second session. It seemed that blustery conditions had removed the moisture from the pitch that has assisted the Sri Lankan bowlers, particularly teenager Lahiru Kumar who had earlier claimed a career-best 6/122 in South Africa’s first innings.
But when you have the pace of Rabada the conditions often prove to be immaterial. Combined with the poor shot selection by the Sri Lankans, it proved a deadly cocktail.
As always the major scalp of the afternoon was the Sri Lankan captain Angelo Mathews. The visitors desperately needed their skipper’s expertise in foreign conditions to shine through, but he was not compact enough against a rising delivery from Rabada. Instead of watching the ball calmly through to the wicket-keeper, Mathews hung his bat outside the off stump only for the ball to take a thick outside that flew to his counterpart Faf du Plessis at second slip.
To add to the despair Mathews’ dismissal was exactly an over after Dimuth Karunaratne had slashed Rabada to a diving Temba Bavuma at point. These dismissals set about an hour of absolute chaos as the Sri Lankans lost their nine wickets for the addition of only 54 runs.
Although South Africa required only 43 overs to dismiss the Sri Lankans, Du Plessis did not enforce the follow-on and instead opted to extend the lead even further.
Openers Dean Elgar and Stephen Cook drove home South Africa’s advantage even further by sharing an unbroken 35-run partnership by the time stumps were drawn.
Prior to the bowlers’ heroics Quinton de Kock has powered the home side to a sizeable total with his 6th career Test century. De Kock was ably supported by the tailenders who took the Proteas to brink of 400.