Watch cricket video highlights of Sri Lanka tour of South Africa 2024. 2nd Test between Sri Lanka and South Africa. Venue of the match will be Gqeberha.
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The second morning was brightened by Kyle Verreynne’s explosive run to his third Test century, which propelled South Africa to 358. However, Sri Lanka owned the afternoon and evening sessions. Their top four put up their strongest team performance of the series thus far, with Pathum Nissanka smashing 89 off 157 balls and joining Dinesh Chandimal in a 109-run second wicket partnership.
With seven wickets remaining and Kamindu Mendis undefeated at 30, as well as Angelo Mathews not out at stumps, Sri Lanka is in a strong position to grab the lead in the first innings. They have applied significant pressure to a South African attack that appeared to be without alternatives on a flattening Gqeberha deck for the first time in the series. The most dangerous of their bowlers was Kagiso Rabada, who took out Dimuth Karunaratne for the third time in the series in his 15 overs while giving up just 40 runs.
Additionally, on 22, David Bedingham had dropped Nissanka at second slip. Compared to the first Test, where Marco Jansen had taken 11 wickets, Sri Lanka approached him with far greater confidence. Jansen, the only frontline bowler without a wicket, had conceded 75 runs in his 18 overs by stumps. With just eight runs from his first 50 deliveries, Nissanka was generally cautious, despite a few plays and misses against Rabada in particular.
He finally started attacking the shorter deliveries, and for the rest of the innings, he preferred the pull stroke, especially when Jansen was bowling shorter balls. In Chandimal’s company, he increased his batting pace and settled into accumulation mode, especially against Keshav Maharaj’s spin. The majority of his runs came square of the wicket. Given that he was getting close to a century, it will be extra upsetting that he was out to Maharaj, whom he had earlier hammered for six over deep midwicket.
He simply sprinted towards the bowler, tried a cross-batted stroke to a full ball, and basically yorked himself, with the ball clattering into leg stump. Nevertheless, Sri Lanka had gained a platform thanks to the stance between him and Chandimal. Early on, Chandimal gathered edged fours behind the wicket, displaying a looser strokeplay than either of the openers. Despite this, he persisted with Nissanka until he was snatched behind the stumps after a hesitant prod against Dane Paterson.
At the start of his innings, Mathews was also a little tetchy, but he eventually hit some boundaries and found a rhythm. From the beginning, Kamindu Mendis seemed confident. Together, the two scored 43 runs before stumps. But it was Verreynne who had ruled the morning. After losing Keshav Maharaj without South Africa increasing their overnight total, Verreynne and Rabada put on 66 as Sri Lanka used bouncers and short deliveries almost exclusively to hammer the final two wickets out.
When Rabada was dismissed by Asitha, leaving him just the No. 11 for company, Verreynne took additional more risks after smashing three boundaries between deep backward square leg and deep midwicket in one Asitha Fernando over to really get his engine going. Verreynne slammed the throttle with even more force when he had 19 runs left to reach his century. He first hit Prabath Jayasuriya over cow corner for six before slicing Asitha into the banks to come within one run of reaching 100.
In that same over, he hit a powerful pull that sent the ball hurtling past the fine leg’s head and reached triple figures. Wild celebrations followed the milestone, as Paterson gave the dressing room a bear hug while Verreynne bowed. After scoring 58 off 50 balls on day two, Verreynne finished undefeated on 105 off 133 balls, although he probably did not expect a century when play started in the morning. Lahiru Kumara finished with 4 for 79 and took the final South Africa wicket. Vishwa Fernando and Asitha each took five wickets.
