Sri Lanka's young bowling unit has once again proved their credentials by dismissing South Africa for 235 runs in the first innings of the first Test on their own soil and Quinton de Kock was all in awe for Islanders’ attack at Kingsmead.
On Thursday (14th February), De Kock has admitted that the Proteas being caught off-guard by the Lanka’s less familiar seamers in the series opener of the two-match Test series at home.
However, the Proteas side managed to get to 235 from 89 for 4 thanks to a rapid-fire 94-ball 80 from De Kock, but Suranga Lakmal’s tight bowling made thing difficult for the hosts, as the bowler conceded only 29 runs in his 14 overs with Vishwa Fernando and Kasun Rajitha did the brilliant job to bowl out the hosts for 235 runs inside 60 overs at Kingsmead.
De Kock told media after day’s play, “I think they caught us off guard. Going forward we'll be much more alert to the bowling up front. We've understood that Suranga Lakmal is a serious opening bowler that we have seen a lot of, and have good plans for, but were a bit unaware of the new guys.”
Commenting Fernando and Rajitha, who have a sum total of nine Test matches between them, the Proteas keeper said, “The two new guys - we hadn't seen much. We've only played one of them [Rajitha] in white-ball cricket once. The rest, it was unseen before. To understand and change our game plan can be quite tough, especially with the pitch. They bowled really well - they didn't miss their lengths often. We had work hard to get what we did.”
He signed off by saying, “I think what surprised us was just the angle of their bowling and the skills they had. They had different actions, some skiddiness, and some bounce. But with those new guys, the batsmen have had a feel of them now, and we'll come back and see how we are going to go about it. They are two solid bowlers and they will keep us in trouble through the series. We've got to keep our eyes open for them.”
(With Cricbuzz Inputs)
