Has Proteas conquered spin? Lanka up against tough opposition

South African batsmen have employed the sweep very well against the Lankan spinners. Here Janneman Malan who scored a century in the second ODI demonstrates the stroke to perfection

 Charith Asalanka played a lone hand for Sri Lanka by scoring his second successive 50 of the series

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

One of the key problems that a country like Sri Lanka faces is whether the opposition sides that tour the country have learnt to play spin well on subcontinent pitches or how good are the spinners that we have in our line-up?

In January this year England captain Joe Root scored back-to-back hundreds and his batsmen played the Lankan spinners on turning tracks so well that they were able to win the two-Test series 2-0.

The current three-match ODI series between Sri Lanka and South Africa also throws up the same question for after two matches, the home side finds itself 1-all instead of being 2-up and going into the third and final game tomorrow in a do or die situation to win the series.

For all the talk and plans of defeating South Africa with spin has most certainly backfired because the visitors have encountered our spinners exceptionally well to run up totals of 286-6 and 283-6 of which 67.4% of those runs have been scored off the spinners.

Charith Asalanka, Sri Lanka’s inform batsman, hit the nail on the head when he said: “The spinners bowled well but international teams touring the subcontinent have watched videos and learnt how to play spin. This is the challenge we face today. They (South Africa) are playing well on turning pitches, so we need to uplift our game and play well.”

“Initially we made a lot of mistakes on the field which can happen to any team on a given day. We got into a momentum batting with Dasun (Shanaka) but the rain came and interrupted the match and we lost it. But we must give credit to South Africa for playing well,” said Asalanka.

Asalanka and Shanaka had somewhat set Sri Lanka on a recovery course with a stand of 64 when the interruption for rain occurred with Sri Lanka 114-4 in 25 overs. When the game resumed Sri Lanka’s revised target was 265 from 41 overs which meant that they needed a further 171 from 22 overs at a rate of 7.77 which was quite achievable. But with the momentum lost Sri Lanka crashed to 197 all out in 37.4 overs losing six wickets for 72.    

“We can’t place the blame entirely on the bowlers, if we fail in our batting and bowling at least we should be able to make up for it on the field. We are a young team and we haven’t given our best on the field today, we made some mistakes. Initially, we need to correct the mistakes we made in this game and as a group we will make a big effort to win,” said Asalanka. 

“It has happened to us before and we have come out of it well. I don’t see a reason for changing the team but as individuals we must uplift our game by 110 percent. On my part I must improve my performances. If we can come up with two or three individual performances like in the first ODI we can win the next match.”

Janneman Malan, who took the Man of the Match award in South Africa’s 67-run (D/L method) win in the second ODI on Saturday with a nicely paced-out century, said: “Our batting unit batted really well in the first match as well against spin. I watched guys like Aiden, Heinrich and Rassie in the middle overs, the sweep was very effective. I think we can kind of trust the bounce. A couple of us tried to play a straight bat and got beaten.”

“I don’t think our bowlers bowled too badly in the first game. We underestimated how good you can be on this wicket, like playing square on it. Credit to the bowlers, they started great and they bowled really well and the batters expressed that the team can excel on both fronts.

“The secret is we have realistic goals and expectations. We don’t want to have one in a 1,000 days, we want targets that we can get and if we hit them we should have a good chance of winning the game. Credit to the players and coaches for setting those targets. It’s a good difference to have and then to find a way to get there throughout the game,” he said.

So going into the decisive third and final ODI at the R. Premadasa Stadium tomorrow, Sri Lanka will have their work cut out to try and stop South Africa from winning the match and with it the series. They will have to try and think of something out of the box if they are to clinch the series. For the record South Africa has won the last two ODI series played in Sri Lanka by margins of 3-2 (in 2018) and 2-1 (in 2014).