JP Duminy scored his fourth Test century and the second in his last three matches to enable the Castle Lager Proteas to dominate the second day of the first Test match against Sri Lanka at Galle on Thursday and assume a commanding position.
The Proteas were able to declare at 455/9 to which Sri Lanka had replied with 30/0 by the close.
Remarkably it was Duminy’s maiden Test match appearance against Sri Lanka and even more remarkably the four players to pass 50 – Duminy, fellow centurion Dean Elgar, Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock – were all playing their first Test matches against these particular opponents.
Duminy’s innings was his highest, either at home or away against any of the sub-continent teams, beating his 57 against Pakistan at Abu Dhabi last year and will do wonders for his confidence on these testing surfaces.
De Kock made his maiden Test half-century (51 off 90 balls, 6 fours) and he deserved a lot of the credit for the commanding position at the end of day two as he led what amount to the rebirth of the South African innings after the loss of the two most senior batsmen for low scores. It said a lot about his maturity in only his second Test match.
He appeared to lose his focus after he reached 50 although the ball from Dilruwan Perera that dismissed him courtesy of a catch at slip by Mahela Jayawardene would have accounted for most left-handers.
De Kock batted ahead of Duminy in a continuation of a policy of the past few years that has seen Duminy given the specialist responsibility of captaining the lower-order batting effort. It is something he has done brilliantly in the past and his career average would probably be better if he had been able to bat regularly with a top-order partner.
Duminy (100 not out off 206 balls, 10 fours) and Vernon Philander (27 off 96 balls, 3 fours) constructed a vital partnership of 75 for the eighth wicket in 30 overs that made sure that the Proteas would reach their minimum target of 400. It was reminiscent of their similar contributions to the series-winning Test at Lord’s in 2012 when they shared partnerships of 72 and 54 in a match South Africa only won by 51 runs. On that occasion they enabled the Proteas to take their total from 161/6 to more than 300.
Crucially their partnership today stopped a sequence of five successive partnerships of less than 30 runs that had put Sri Lanka right back in the game.
The Proteas lower order was far from finished when Philander was dismissed by a tired attack that was missing one of its seamers with the result that both spinners sent down more than 50 overs. Morne Morkel produced his highest score against Sri Lanka (22 off 74 balls, 4 fours) as he helped Duminy both reach his century and put together a ninth wicket partnership of 66.
This is a partnership record for the Proteas against Sri Lanka, beating the 45 of Nicky Boje and Paul Adams at Kandy in 2000.
The match has so far also been a good one for the new Proteas captain who showed his attacking intent both in the way he batted, even if it cost him his wicket, and the timing of his declaration and his instruction to Duminy and Morkel to attack after the tea interval.
The Proteas have also ticked a lot of other important boxes so far in this match, including the new-look top three and the balance of the side.
They will be looking to the bowlers to tick some more important boxes on day three.
