Sri Lanka suffered a 5-0 whitewash at the hands of South Africa after they lost the fifth and final One Day International of their tour on an outing cut short by failing floodlights.
Lasith Malinga opted to bat first in hopes of posting a formidable total to defend at Cape Town. The visitors were relying heavily on their opening batsmen to provide a platform for the inexperienced middle-order. However, the Proteas dismissed both the openers by the fifth over and Sri Lanka was reeling at 14/2.
Returning hero, Kusal Mendis stabilised the innings at the cost of the run-rate. In the 18th over, the partnership was broken when South African skipper Francois du Plessis took a catch off the bowling of Imran Tahir. Though three of the the Lankan batsman that came later scored thirties, none of them capitalised on their starts.
For the hosts, Kagiso Rabada was the pick of the bowlers with Tahir being as economic as ever to restrict the target to 226. In the second innings, Aiden Markram made his case for a spot in the limited-overs squad with an unbeaten half-century. South Africa were 135/2 when 28th over ended. Shortly after, the umpires called the players off the field due to bad light.
Sri Lanka did not get any more chances to redeem themselves that night and the match ended in South Africa’s favour by 41 runs. The 5-0 drubbing in the ODI series is a bad sign for Malinga and his men, especially with the World Cup coming up in June. They will have an opportunity to try out out better combinations in the three T20 Internationals starting from Tuesday.
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