In a superb display of professional cricket, South Africa beat Sri Lanka by five wickets in the second One Day International, to take a 2-0 lead in the five match series at East London yesterday.
The hosts, paced out the innings to finish off the game with only eight balls to spare.
Hashim Amla set the tone for the chase with an elegant 55 in 58 balls before JP Duminy took over with an unbeaten 66 off 87 balls.
After being put into bat, Sri Lanka made 236 for six in their allotted 50 overs, thanks to some attacking cricket by Dinesh Chandimal and Upul Tharanga.
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| J.P. Duminy 66 n.o. for South Africa |
Chandimal was spellbinding and proved that his bravery is often favoured by fortune. The 22-year-old went onto compile an unbeaten 92 runs in 115 balls, hitting six boundaries. His second ODI half century came in 84 balls.
Nuwan Kulasekara hit a cameo 22 of 13 balls in the batting power play.
Coming ahead of Angelo Matthews and his namesake, Kosala Kulasekara, Nuwan blasted two fours and a six off Dale Steyn before hitting another straight six off Lonwabo Tsotsobe, the most difficult man to handle in both games.
After keeping his head down for six balls in the first over, Tharanga opened up his shoulders from the third over. His fearlessness injected confidence on young Chandimal.
The third wicket pair scored freely against the two spinners, JP Dumny and Robin Petersen, before Morne Morkel came in the 29th over to break the partnership of 84 runs.
Morkel, a tall guy - height of 6 feet 5 inches, usually extracts much bounce out of the surface. The one that Tharanga edged was going inches higher than the batsman thought.
Tharanga faced 85 balls and dispatched four of them pass the boundary rope while sending one sailing for six over the bowlers head.
Mahela Jayawardane, batting at number five to give more opportunity to Chandimal, came to the middle in the 29th over. Mahela fell to a brilliant catch by Dale Steyn at backward square leg.
Then it was the batting power play. Morne Morkel pitched one just outside the leg stump and the batsman wasn't hesitant to glance before Dale Steyn flying to his left grabbed the catch with both hands.
Skipper Dilshan couldn't manage his bat to do the talking for the second time. Kumar Sangakkara offered a simple edge to AB behind the stumps after facing 28 balls and Sri Lanka was struggling again at two down for 21 after 10 overs.
From there onwards, Sri Lanka's fight back to score 236 for six, was somewhat in contrast to what they showed in Paarl three days ago.
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