South Africa relegated Sri Lanka to the worst loss of their ODI cricket at Paarl in the first game of the five-match ODI series.
Chasing a difficult 302 for a win, Sri Lanka capitulated to the fourth-lowest total in ODI cricket of 43 all out to go down by 258 runs. The only scores lower than Sri Lanka’s 43 are Zimbabwe’s 35 and 38 and Canada’s 36 all out – ironically all of them against the Lankans.
This is the biggest loss by way of number of runs for a game between two Test-playing countries (there is another where South Africa beat Zimbabwe by 272 runs in 2010 but Zimbabwe had suspended its Test-playing operations during that six-year long period).
Morne Morkel was the destroyer in chief as he began with a wicket in the very first over of the Sri Lankan innings. He went on to grab three more scalps, including the vital wickets of Kumar Sangakkara, Angelo Mathews and Kosala Kulasekera.
Kulasekera (19) was the only batsman to get into double-figures and was the ninth batsman out.
Earlier, South Africa were propped by a century from Hashim Amla and a superbly constructed 72 from Jacques Kallis. AB de Villiers, leading as a full-time captain for the first time in ODIs, smashed a quick-fire 52 to propel the team towards a 300-plus score.
It was only Lasith Malinga’s five-wicket burst that restricted South Africa from getting to around 330. As it turned out, it was a score beyond Sri Lanka’s reach.
Brief scores:
South Africa 301/8 (Hashim Amla 112, Lasith Malinga 5/54) beat Sri Lanka 43 all out (Mornel Morkel 4/10)
The South Africa v Sri Lanka 2nd ODI will begin at 8.00 am GMT on January 14.
