Dinesh Chandimal made a valiant effort to turn the tide of the game but his efforts fell short and South Africa defeated Sri Lanka by 28 runs in the first T20I of the series. With the win, the Proteas, who were led by Keshav Maharaj on his international T20 debut, took a 1-0 lead in the three-match long series.
Chasing a somewhat stiff target of 166 runs, the hosts started off on a decent note with the openers Avishka Fernando and Dinesh Chandimal putting a 34-run partnership for the first wicket. However, they were slow to get going in the powerplay and the required rate that was at around 8 runs per over surged beyond 10 runs per over.
The pressure of surging required run rate was telling on the middle order and they could not sustain in the middle phase of the game. After the fall of Fernando, Bhanuka Rajapaksha quickly followed him to the dugout without adding any run to Sri Lanka’s tally.
Dinesh Chandimal was the lone man standing for the hots with a well-complied half-century but the rest of the batting line-up floundered under pressure and Sri Lanka were limited to just 135 runs from 20 overs.
For the Proteas, all six bowlers tried did their job brilliantly and the five Sri Lankan wickets were shared among five bowlers with Kagiso Rabada being the only bowler without a wicket to his name.
Earlier, Keshav Maharaj earned an interesting feather to his cap by leading the South African T20I side in his debut match. He started his captaincy journey by winning an important toss and asked the Proteas batsmen to bat first.
The swashbuckling trio of Quinton de Kock, Reeza Hendricks and Aiden Markram heard the call from their captain and ratified his call by putting on a batting show. The first wicket partnership brought 73 runs for the visitors and although there was a slippery slope for the middle order, the partnership between David Miller and Markram propelled the Proteas to a challenging total for the hosts.
Wanindu Hasaranga is refusing to go silent and his stars were shining bright on the night of the first T20I against South Africa as well as he took two important wickets of de Kock and Hendricks.
Sri Lanka had won the two-match long ODI series that preceded the T20I series 2-1 and hence a winning start to the T20I series will give a lot of hope and satisfaction to the Proteas.