A graphical view of Sri Lanka vs South Africa, 1st Test Match, Galle, played 4-8 August, 2004. by Jack Solock

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Scorecard:

Sri Lanka v South Africa

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The match was set up nicely. A large crowd (a relative novelty for a Sri Lanka Test match) was in, expecting an exciting run chase, as South Africa looked for the 318 remaining runs they needed for victory (they had made 7 for no wicket the previous evening) off 90 overs. Sri Lanka was looking for 10 wickets. Their champion bowler, Muttiah Muralitharan, was looking to add to his record total of 531 wickets. A great finish might be expected.

 

It was not to be. South Africa, like England and New Zealand before them, closed up shop and settled happily for a draw in the 1st Test at Galle International Stadium. In recent times, only Australia have played attacking cricket in Sri Lanka. The last day of this match was not exactly a great advertisement for Test cricket in a country that could have used one.

 

 

South Africa were probably not thinking of a draw when stumps were drawn on the first day, a double strike by Shaun Pollock and Makhaya Ntini in the last 10 balls of the day limiting Sri Lanka to 279/7. But Sri Lanka replied with a magnificent 170 run 8th wicket stand between Mahale Jayawardene and Chaminda Vass, their highest 8th wicket partnership in all Tests, beating the old record of 146 set by Thilan Samaraweera and Upul Chandana against Zimbabwe in January 2002. For Jayawardene, the partnership was the exclamation point to a great innings of 237, just 5 short of his all time high Test score. As the game graph shows, what could have become a pedestrian innings of 300-350 was supercharged to 486, mainly by this partnership. And the 55.4 overs consumed on the second day could have easily ground South Africa into dust, leading to a batting collapse.

 

It might be argued that the seeds of South Africa's draw strategy were set in their first innings. That strategy took root in a 6 hour and 53 minute century by Jacques Rudolph that included 9 of the 10 partnerships of the innings, and 292 of the 376 runs scored.

 

In a search for quick runs to give their bowlers time to win the match, Sri Lanka faltered, and ended up setting South Africa a target of 325. But South Africa didn't show the slightest interest in going after that target (See below). Perhaps it was the difficulty of the pitch, which made runs hard to come by (as Jayawardene told the press after his great innings). Perhaps it was a fear of Muralitharan. Perhaps Captain Graeme Smith's lingering flu-like illness (although he did bat heroically for over 4 hours on the 5th day) had an effect. Whatever the reasons, South Africa seemed content to simply dig in and bat out the day, which they did easily. Muralitharan, as it turned out, was uncharacteristically ineffective in this innings, and only later was the seriousness of his shoulder injury learned.

 

South Africa's shell like defense can be seen in two bar graphs, which depict the two teams' comparative maiden overs and batting strike rates.

 

 

 

The maiden over graph shows South Africa's defensive intent in their first innings as well as their second. The strike rate graph shows South Africa's defensive intent, especially in their second innings. It also bears out what Jayawardene claimed about the difficulty of scoring on the Galle pitch, as in only one of the four innings was a strike rate of 50 achieved. Interestingly, in the last Galle match, in March 2004, Australia had achieved strike rates of 51.3 and 51.2, while Sri Lanka's were 46.8 and 54.4. In that match, Australia, down by 161 runs after the 1st innings, had not only dug in for over 10 hours but scored over 500 runs to set Sri Lanka a total of 352. Sri Lanka lasted only 3 hours in reply and lost by nearly 200 runs on that occasion.

 

Sources for this article:
Sa'adi Thawfeeq--Sri Lanka Daily News and Sunday Observer (Colombo)
Michael Doman--Durban Mercury
Charlie Austin--Wisden Cricinfo
Cricinfo ball by ball commentary
Cricketarchive match archive

 

(Article: Copyright © 2004 Jack Solock)