Durban. South Africa moved up to second place behind India in the World Test Championship table after a thumping 233run win over Sri Lanka at the Kingsmead Cricket Stadium on Saturday.
The Proteas bowling attack, led by Marco Jensen, tore apart the Sri Lankan batting lineup in the second innings and bowled out their opponents for just 42 runs. Jensen became the first leftarm fast bowler to take a tenwicket haul since South Africa's reentry into cricket in 1991.
After being put to bat in the first innings, the Proteas struggled. After the fall of one wicket after another, captain Temba Bavuma's innings of 70 runs took his team to 19110.
Having failed to cross the 200run mark in the first innings, the Proteas bowlers took the field under immense pressure on the second day and performed brilliantly. In Marco Jensen's brilliant 6.5 over spell, the leftarm fast bowler took seven wickets. Kagiso Rabada (1) and Gerald Coetzee (2) helped Jansen bowl out the visitors for 42, giving them a lead of 149 runs.
Tristan Stubbs (122) and Bavuma (113) made 249, the highest fourthwicket partnership for South Africa in Test matches against Sri Lanka, surpassing the 192 made by AB de Villiers and Jacques Kallis at Newlands, Cape Town in 2012. Broke the record. At the score of 3665, the Proteas declared their innings and set a huge target of 516 runs for the visiting team.
Despite the best efforts of Dinesh Chandimal and captain Dhananjay de Silva, the visiting team was bundled out for 282 runs and the host team got a memorable victory.
After being named man of the match, Jensen said, “I always dreamed of taking five wickets, but never thought I would take 10, but that's what you work for. It just didn't click.” (Talking about the first innings performance). In the second innings, we felt the pitch was a bit flat, slow and low, but taking 11 wickets is a dream come true.”
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Image Credit: KhasKhabar.