Sri Lanka leave SA dancing in the dark

AB de Villiers danced to the music rocking Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury stadium as he took the last few steps to the middle to undertake the toss with Dinesh Chandimal in Chittagong yesterday.

By the time he sat down to discuss the hows and whys of SA’s five-run loss to Sri Lanka in the World T20, De Villiers had run out of reasons to be cheerful.

“I don’t mind losing when we give 100%, but that wasn’t the case today,” said De Villiers, who took over the captaincy when Faf du Plessis was put out by a hamstring injury.

Messy fielding, seven wides and SA losing six wickets for 42 runs in 33 balls — four batsmen reached 20 but only one of them made it to 30 — were the main causes of De Villiers’s bad mood.

“When you lose too many wickets at the wrong time, it’s game over,” he said.

Dale Steyn arrived reinvented as Robert de Niro in

— hair cropped close, black sweatband on his right arm, pink strapping on his left arm, evil in his eyes — and disappeared until the last ball of the first over.

Kusal Perera, the lashing left-hander, hit Steyn for consecutive fours through extra cover and point and a six over midwicket. Two wides and a single brought the total for the over to 17.

The single put Tillakaratne Dilshan on strike, and Steyn castled him with a delivery that veered towards leg before straightening to light up the bails and stumps.

But Perera’s assault continued and runs flowed at better than one a ball for the next eight overs, in which SA’s sole success was the wicket of Mahela Jayawardene.

Imran Tahir came on in the 10th over. With him came a way to stop the bleeding. His fifth delivery took Kumar Sangakkara’s top edge and flew to Lonwabo Tsotsobe at short third man.

Tahir completed his quota in the 17th, adding the wickets of Dinesh Chandimal and Perera, for 61, for career-best figures of 3/26.

But the presence of Angelo Matthews until halfway through the last over of the innings, when he played on to Steyn for 43, kept Sri Lanka surging towards their highest total against SA.

Quinton de Kock hit Nuwan Kulasekara for two fours and a six in the third over of SA’s reply, but he was bowled by a swinging yorker from Lasith Malinga in the fourth.

SA looked on course when JP Duminy took on the aggressor’s role in a third-wicket stand of 50 with Hashim Amla. That changed between the 14th and 17th overs, when De Villiers, Duminy and Albie Morkel were removed.

Fifteen runs were needed when Malinga stood at the top of his run to deliver the last over. Only David Miller could win it from there.

But when Steyn and Miller were run out off the first two balls, SA were dancing in the dark.