Contrary to their performance on the first day at New Lands, Sri Lanka went down without any fight as the Proteas dictated terms to the visitors. Commencing the day with wicketkeeper Quinton De Kock still unbeaten, the hosts have propelled to a healthy total thanks to a resurgent century from the southpaw. De Kock registered the third century of his short test career so far and became the quickest wicketkeeper to get to 1000 Test Runs in terms of the numbers of innings.
South Africa were dismissed for 392 and for Sri Lanka, it was the youngster Lahiru Kumara who stood out with an exceptional performance. Kumara picked up 6 wickets to flag off a memorable outing at Cape Town.
There was no optimism surrounding Sri Lanka’s batting however as the pace duo of Kagiso Rabada and Vernon Philander decimated the visitors. The two pacers shared 4 wickets apiece as the Sri Lankan batting seemed in absolute disarray. Rabada was extremely lethal against the top order as no batsmen seemed to be able to negate him.
Southpaw Upul Tharanga looked decent as he top scored with 26 in Sri Lanka’s sorry innings. After Rabada’s brutal bowling display, his partner in crime, Vernon Philander took over with an exceptional bowling performance as he cleaned up the tail without any fuss.
In between the two lethal spells by Rabada and Philander respectively, slow left arm spinner Keshav Maharaj didn’t do his credentials any harm as he chipped in with a couple of wickets. Maharaj, in fact, got rid of Sri Lanka’s most competent batsmen in recent times, as he dismissed Kusal Mendis and Dhananjaya De Silva.
With a first innings lead of 282, South Africa didn’t enforce the follow-on and opted to bat again. At stumps, the hosts were 35-0 in 11 overs as the openers got off to a cautious start.