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Sri Lanka’s Kusal Perera celebrates on his way to leading the team to a famous victory.
Sri Lanka’s Kusal Perera celebrates on his way to leading the team to a famous victory. Photograph: Anesh Debiky/AFP/Getty Images
Sri Lanka’s Kusal Perera celebrates on his way to leading the team to a famous victory. Photograph: Anesh Debiky/AFP/Getty Images

Kusal Perera heroics lead Sri Lanka to remarkable Test win in South Africa

This article is more than 5 years old
South Africa 235 & 259; Sri Lanka 191 & 304-9
Tourists put on 78 for final wicket in dramatic finale

Kusal Perera produced a swashbuckling innings for the ages to almost single-handedly lift Sri Lanka to a remarkable one-wicket win over South Africa in a nail-biting conclusion to the first Test.

The tourists were close to defeat in Durban when they subsided to 226 for nine in pursuit of 304, but Perera held his nerve with an astonishing 153 not out to get them over the line.

His knock contained 12 fours and five sixes and he provided the bulk of the runs in an unbroken stand of 78 with Vishwa Fernando – the highest partnership for the last wicket in a successful chase in Test history. Fernando contributed just six runs but was able to keep the Proteas bowlers at bay in the 27 balls he faced, allowing his more senior batting partner to help Sri Lanka to a 1-0 lead in this two-Test series.

Dale Steyn took two wickets in three balls as Sri Lanka slumped to 110 for five at the start of the penultimate day though Perera and Dhananjaya de Silva steadied proceedings with a 96-run stand.

But Dhananjaya was trapped lbw, overturned on review, for 48 by Keshav Maharaj, who then took the wicket of Suranga Lakmal with his next delivery while Lasith Embuldeniya and Kasun Rajitha were unable to offer much resistance.

With South Africa needing one more wicket, Perera cut loose by thumping Maharaj high over the long-on boundary before moving to his second Test ton off 146 balls shortly afterwards.

South Africa – a bowler light with Vernon Philander’s hamstring injury precluding his involvement – were starting to grow restless as Perera continued to pepper the boundary rope with regularity.

Steyn was twice swatted away over deep square-leg for six, either side of Kagiso Rabada inducing a top edge from the left-hander that produced another six as the target came down to single figures.

It was a rare moment of fortune for Perera, who secured a momentous victory by steering a Rabada delivery down to the third-man boundary to the euphoria of the Sri Lanka dressing room.

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