By Srian Obeyesekere

Sri Lanka was soundly beaten by South Africa by 232 runs, but the last trio of the recognised batsmen Dinesh Chandimal 83, Skipper Dhananjaya de Silva 59 and Kusal Mendis 48 did mount a rearguard action in the hopelessness of the huge eroding deficit from which the Proteas drove it home on the penultimate fourth day at Kingsmead Durban.
Resuming from an overnight 101 for 5, one drop Chandimal and Dhananjaya produced the first flourish in the Lankan batting adding 95 for the sixth wicket, a cascading of 9 boundaries and a six by the Lankan skipper while Chandimal was all grit written into that defiance crossing the boundary with 12 hits.

But that resistance did not carry through in what was Sri Lanka’s last blossoming hopes that perished with the Lankan skipper’s resolve undone by a mistimed back foot stroke with the lobbing ball snapped up by the bowler Gerald Coetzee on his follow through. The one blemish was a costly one in an already compounded crisis.by his exit with the score on 196. The next in Kusal Mendis did also take the fight back with a robust 48 off 77 balls hitting 9 boundaries in a late flourish 75 runs as the razoring verily ended when he nicked Marco Jansen to the wicket keeper. From that point South Africa mopped up the tail.
Jansen’s second innings 4 for 73 launch, capping his 11-wicket match haul with the Player of the Match reward that took South Africa within the finals of the World Test Championship.

South Africa 191 (Bavuma 70, Asitha 3-44, Kumara 3-70) and 366 for 5 dec (Stubbs 122, Bavuma 113) beat Sri Lanka 42 (Jansen 7-13) and 282 (Chandimal 83, Dhananjaya 59, Jansen 4-73) by 233 runs