The South African team, aided by some brilliant bowling by their pacers, wrapped up the first Test against Sri Lanka, defeating the visitors by an innings and 45 runs at the SuperSport Park in Centurion. As soon as Kasun Rajitha was caught by Keshav Maharaj off Anrich Nortje, South African fans finally had some reasons for joy after poor results against England and Australia lately.
For the Proteas, the pacers divided the eight wickets that fell amongst themselves with two each for Nortje, Lutho Sipamla, Lungi Ngidi, and all-rounder Wiaan Mulder. Kusal Perera was the only Sri Lankan that looked in some sort of control during the second innings of the islanders. The heroes of the previous innings - Dinesh Chandimal and Niroshan Dickwella - couldn’t really get going in this innings, and Sri Lanka were already devoid of the services of free-flowing Dhananjaya de Silva due to an injury. Wanindu Hasarnaga also fought a lone battle at the end, scoring his maiden Test fifty for the Lankan Tigers. He scored 59 of 53 balls with the help of 12 fours and one six.
Earlier in the South African innings, batsmen, led by Faf du Plessis, made full use of a depleted Sri Lankan bowling attack (injury to Rajitha and de Silva), scoring freely and getting to a mammoth 621. The 34-year-old du Plessis got out in an agonizing manner on 199, while Dean Elgar had got out on 95 in the same innings. Keshav Maharaj, Temba Bavuma, and Aiden Markram were the other three who went past the 50-run mark for South Africa.
Faf was announced as Man of the Match for his marathon innings. The next game would begin from 3rd January at the Wanderers.
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