Plays of the day from the second ODI between Sri Lanka and South Africa in Pallekele
Andrew Fidel Fernando in Pallekele09-Jul-2014The bunked boundary
Mahela Jayawardene made Sri Lanka’s second-highest score, but the innings was far from fluent. The early four he did get though, was disallowed, effectively by an umpiring error. Jayawardene’s sweep to Imran Tahir in the 27th over took an under-edge, brushed his front pad and trickled away to the fine-leg fence, but Tahir had flown into an appeal raucous enough to convince the umpire that Jayawardene was out lbw. That decision was overturned on review, but with the ball being deemed dead the moment the umpire’s finger went up, Jayawardene scored no runs off the delivery. It would be another 46 balls before he hit another four – his only boundary of the innings.The bludgeon
Tillakaratne Dilshan is more deliberate than dashing these days, but the Pallekele surface is enough to lure the savage back in him. He had hit three fours off Dale Steyn’s first two overs and then hurt the South African spearhead’s right hand to limit his impact to 2.2 overs. Steyn had attempted to get out of the way of the Dilshan bludgeon, but the bruising was enough to send him off for x-rays.The reverse-reverse sweep
Dilshan has been an innovator in the second half of his career, but he has now twice been out accidentally trying to hit a conventional sweep to the offside. Dilshan knelt to sweep what would effectively have been a legside wide from JP Duminy, only, he was far too early into the shot, and the ball would hit his blade high up and be redirected towards the stumps. He had been out in almost the same fashion against Harbhajan Singh in the 2011 World Cup final, and on this occasion, the dismissal denied him a sixth century at Pallekele.The outburst
Dilshan played a central role with the ball as well, delivering perhaps the most dramatic over of South Africa’s innings – the 22nd. Kumar Sangakkara failed to hold on to a tricky take down the legside off Hashim Amla’s bat, first up. Dilshan managed to shrug that off, but he could not subdue his emotions when Ashan Priyanjan put David Miller down two balls later, diving far to his right. He shot the fielder a spray, kicked at the turf, and seemed even more annoyed when the next ball was struck for four. Dilshan’s effort would not go unrewarded though. Miller drove the final delivery low to short cover.
