The South Africa versus Sri Lanka Boxing Day Test concluded on Tuesday at Centurion, with South Africa beating the touring party by a monumental margin of an innings and 45 runs.
Contrary to what seemed to be a match in the favour of the Sri Lankan cricket team at the end of their first innings, turned out to be the one against them. Even without batsman Dhananjaya de Silva, Sri Lanka set up an impressive total of 396 runs.
But in came Faf du Plessis and played a swashbuckling knock, missing a double ton by just a run. His knock turned the tables for South Africa, as with the aid of Plessis’ 199, they scored a colossal 621 runs. Dean Elgar and Keshav Maharaj contributed their own significant share of runs to the host team’s total, scoring 95 runs and 73 runs, respectively. The batting stint of Proteas was overall an A-rated performance.
Sri Lanka failed to keep their momentum on day four in their second innings and got bundled up within 180 runs. Kushal Parera did manage to play a fine knock of 64 runs but then succumbed to the pace Anrich Nortje. Apart from Parera, the only player who couldn’t be blamed for their paltry total in the second innings of the Sri Lankan team would be Wanindu Hasaranga, who without wasting a single ball, scored 59 runs.
Naturally, Faf du Plessis was declared as the Player of the Match. This win makes it the second victory of South Africa in eight matches of the World Test Championship.
The second Test between the two teams will commence on January 3 at Johannesburg.
