After Saturday's 180-run opening loss,
South Africa captain AB de Villiers said his side would not spend time
dissecting their performance, but would instead attempt to forget the
match ever happened. With so many of their best players unavailable,
perhaps that is not so bad a ploy. If South Africa's touring party did
not seem outmatched in these conditions when they landed, they certainly
do now. It will take a great deal of belief and a little luck to
overcome an opponent, who has their measure in skill and technical
proficiency.
The batsmen will reason they simply had a poor outing, and could not
make their risks pay off with such a large total to chase, but foremost
among the visitors' woes must be their bowling at the death. The last 12
overs of Sri Lanka's innings not only cost 137, but the South Africa
attack also seemed incapable of adhering to any semblance of a plan.
Yorkers were missed, often by a distance, and the fast men reverted to a
puzzling Plan B of digging the ball in short, despite Kumar Sangakkara
having clobbered plenty to the square-leg boundary throughout his
innings.
Before the match de Villiers spoke of the potential he saw in Chris
Morris and Rory Kleinveldt, but with all his fast bowlers available for
the second game, experience may mark the route to success.
South Africa's fielding was also uncharacteristically poor, with a
straightforward chance at slip going down early in the innings, before a
slew of ground-
