Slow poison and Proteas now need a miracle

in Galle ALL that South Africa can do now is hang on in there.

The first Test has degenerated purely into an exercise in damage limitation, and hopefully lessons learnt that can be taken down the impressive new highway to the bustling capital for next week’s second Test in Colombo.

Miracles do happen in these parts – such as this very stadium that is flanked by the Indian Ocean on both sides being restored after it was virtually destroyed by the 2004 tsunami – but South Africa’s mountain is almost as high as the Fort Clock Tower that overlooks the ground.

Considering that the Test, let alone the series, is still in its embryonic stage of just two days old tells the story of South Africa’s calamities almost on its own.

The fact that it has all been garishly witnessed before is the real worry, though. Mohali, Bangalore, Nagpur, Delhi and now Galle can be added to the list of places where South Africa’s batting unit has succumbed to the slow poison of spin bowling on helpful pitches.

Across those eight innings – South Africa’s most recent on the subcontinent – the Proteas have passed 200 only once. Yesterday they were not that lucky with Sri Lanka’s spin trio of Dilruwan Perera (4/46), Rangana Herath (2/39) and Lakshan Sandakan (1/18) claiming the first seven South African wickets to fall to skittle the tourists for their lowest score – 126 – on the island which ceded a massive advantage of 161 runs to their hosts.

It was an even greater calamity with the “Nightmares of Nagpur” – when South Africa posted their lowest score (79) since readmission – almost being revisited when the old manual scoreboard read 51/6 in the morning session.

However, Proteas captain Faf du Plessis – just like Sri Lanka’s Dimuth Karunaratne had shown over both days with a first innings century and another half-century yesterday – proved that runs could be scored through “a decent defence, good scoring options and some good fortune”.

Du Plessis contributed 49, and more importantly formed part of a 64-run partnership with all-rounder Vernon Philander (19) that ensured the record books at least remained intact in some part.

“It is a tough pitch for both teams, as you saw when we bowled in the first innings,” South Africa’s most experienced subcontinent tourist Hashim Amla explained.

“Their opener batted exceptionally well; he had an excellent knock which basically got them to the score they got to.

“It is a tough wicket. You have to try and capitalise on the loose balls when you do get them, and hope that a ball doesn’t have your number, getting caught behind or whatever the case is.”

To fault only the surface for South Africa’s spin failures would, though, be an injustice to Herath and Co.

Regardless of which arm the grenades were delivered from, they all had the control and deception of flight and length to explode at the other end.

All of this, coupled with Sri Lanka’s lead already having bulged to beyond the record fourth innings score successfully chased here, leaves South Africa in a perilous position that Amla conceded bordered on the near impossible.

“Batsmen from both teams have found it difficult to bat, bar one or two batters,” he said.

“We have played in conditions like this before and these types of matches are low-scoring games. You don’t get scores of 350, 400… even 550… on wickets like these. These are wickets where 250, 200 are that type of thing.

“You do take some learning from it, but you can also only play like the pitch allows you to play.

“Two-hundred-and-seventy is a lot of runs, especially on that wicket. Maybe if we can restrict them to 320, that would be a good target for us at least. Maybe if we get good partnerships going, and one of us plays an innings like Karunaratne did. Everyone would like to get stuck in for as long as possible,” Amla said.