By Srian Obeyesekere

Sri Lanka had South Africa on the hop grabbing four wickets for 80 runs on a rain affected opening day confined to just 20.4 overs of the first test match at Kingsmead in Durban yesterday in a decisive must win final chance scenario to staying in contention to making it to the finals of the World Test Championships.
Lankan Skipper Dhananjaya de Silva’s gamble of opting to bowl first on winning the toss paid off in that early on fronting as the three pronged Lankan pace attack of Lahiru Kumara, Asitha Fernando and Vishwa Fernando exploited the seaming conditions to make inroads into the Protea top order to a a well perfected slip cordon that accounted for three of the dismissals.

Asitha Fernando Fernando and Vishwa Fernando combined in reducing South Africa to 14 for 2 removing both openers.
Asitha struck first having Aiden Markram snapped up by Angelo Mathews for 9 followed by Vishwa Fernando who had Tony Smith edging behind as Kamindu Mendis pulled off a brilliant diving catch at second slip.

Lahiru Kumara then stepped in with a took two for 35 grab in a bout of coming back from a first over bashing of three boundaries by Triston Stubbs to inducing him to edging a rising short of length delivery behind to Dimuth Karunaratne for 16 as South Africa dipped to 3 for 46. Nine runs later the hosts lost a fourth wicket when Kumara generated a fast delivery to clean bowling David Bedingham through the gate as the ball nipped back into him.

Home captain Temba Bavuma denied the Lankan bowlers any further success as he steadied the innings batting his way to an unbeaten 28 with Kyle Verreynne on 9 not out on a gloomy day when two sessions were entirely washed out.

Both sides are still in the running for a place in the WTC final but will likely have to win at least three of their next fixtures.