CRICKET
Towering Theunis alone against spin
It matters less that slow left-armer Rangana Herath took 6/98‚ and less that Sri Lanka won by 199 runs with a day and more to spare
Of all the facts and figures that will swirl into the consciousness in the wake of SA crashing to another comprehensive defeat in Sri Lanka‚ one matters most. Here it is: Theunis de Bruyn faced only 61 fewer deliveries in SA’s second innings in Colombo than all his teammates combined. It matters less that slow left-armer Rangana Herath took 6/98‚ and less that Sri Lanka won by 199 runs with a day and more to spare. Even less that SA have now lost just three of their past 19 series on the road‚ going back almost 11 years. It is more important that all of those reversals have happened in less than three years‚ but De Bruyn’s feat still towers. "He showed it’s possible to get runs in these conditions‚" Faf du Plessis told a television interviewer said after the Sri Lankans wrapped up their win inside an hour after lunch on Monday. Runs? They’re not nearly as important as balls faced for batsmen in the subcontinent. Alastair Cook is the world champion. Or at least the non-sub-continenta...
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