Perera too good admits skipper
DU PLESSIS: HE MANOEUVRED THINGS BRILLIANTLY
Ken Borland
Proteas captain Faf du Plessis said South Africa were beaten by a freakish innings by Kusal Perera and were not let down by their strategy or bowling in the first Test against Sri Lanka at Kingsmead in Durban at the weekend.
While it was certainly an exceptional innings by Perera, his 153 not out off 200 balls taking Sri Lanka to a target of 304 as he shared a world-record last-wicket stand to win a Test of 78 with Vishwa Fernando (6* off 23 balls), many critics felt the left-hander was helped by South Africa’s decision to go ultra-defensive against him when the tourists still had more than 80 runs to get.
But Du Plessis later defended his tactics.
“There’s obviously a lot of emotion at the moment and I’m trying to think of what we could have done better. An innings like that will be spoken about for many years, Perera really took the game on and he took a lot of risks, on some days it just comes off.
“To hit consistently like that against our bowlers was incredible and we tried all the different tactics, but he manoeuvred things brilliantly with the tail. We tried to make sure we bowled as many balls as possible at the number 11, and obviously we were trying to hit the stumps, but the ball was swinging past the bat and the stumps.
“The way Perera was playing, picking up length balls and sending them over the leg-side, you can only applaud him, it was meant to be for him today and some days you just have to say well played. I don’t feel like we did a lot wrong and we didn’t lose because of any mistakes we made, we didn’t drop any catches,” Du Plessis said.
Sri Lanka now have a chance to get one over India and become the first sub-continental side to win a series in South Africa, providing they don’t lose the second and final Test in Port Elizabeth starting on Thursday.
Du Plessis also repeated the usual bish-bosh about not being happy with the Kingsmead pitch, which he called “very slow”, but he did admit his batsmen need to shop around for more runs in Port Elizabeth, where conditions can be very similar to Durban.
“I was disappointed with the number of runs we scored in both innings, our totals (235 & 259) were under par. We’ve scored more runs on tougher surfaces, so that’s what is most upsetting. Sure, we have a terrible record here and a very slow pitch didn’t give us much to work with, but we have to be adaptable and good enough to beat Sri Lanka at home.
“It’s more about improving our batting, but that was a phenomenal innings by Perera. We tried everything but Perera was just too good today,” Du Plessis said.