A Sri Lankan star is born in South Africa!
Sri Lanka arrived in South Africa recently weeks ago in total shambles. Back to back tours of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa meant that they were going to stay away from home for four months. There was no momentum behind them. They had failed to win a game in New Zealand across all three formats and in Australia the defeats in two Tests were by big margins. At the end of the Australian leg captain Dinesh Chandimal was axed and the Test captaincy was handed to Dimuth Karunaratne.
There aren’t many stars in Sri Lankan cricket these days. Angelo Mathews is the only one and even he was out of the tours of Australia and South Africa with injury. Their three leading fast bowlers were injured too. Going into the opening Test in Durban against world’s number one ranked fast bowler in Kagiso Rabada and the best fast bowler of this generation in Dale Steyn, none gave them a chance to win a game leave alone the series. But this has been incredible two weeks for Sri Lankan cricket. The game of uncertainties has seen one of the greatest upsets in the history of the sport.
The man known as KJP played perhaps the greatest innings ever played by a Sri Lankan. Kusal Janith Perera set up a teasing onewicket win in the first Test in Durban and if people thought that this was a flash in the pan, the tourists sealed South Africa’s fate with a comprehensive eightwicket win in Port Elizabeth. The recent happenings are barely believable as Sri Lanka became only the third country after Australia and England to win a series in South Africa.
This story is from the March 23, 2019 edition of Sportstar.
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This story is from the March 23, 2019 edition of Sportstar.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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