SL VS RSA - 2nd T20I, South Africa tour of Sri Lanka, 2021

South Africa's struggles against spin in the sub-continent are well documented. So Sri Lanka have done pretty much the safe thing of stuffing their side with spinners and preparing rank turners. Alas, it doesn't help when the opposition spinners outbowl you. It's the India-England 2012 story playing out again. Okay, hope you had fun reading what we scribbled up here, as I, Vineet Anantharaman, sign off on behalf of Sagar Chawla and our scorer, Naga. Until a flatter pitch or perhaps a better approach, ta ta!!

Keshav Maharaj | Winning skipper: All credit to my team. They made my life easier. We had simple plans and it all paid off. It is important that we keep building on the positives. We could bowl better in the powerplay and with our batting. There has been a vast improvement in the last two years for us. We read the conditions early and identified that spin was difficult to play. Aiden just stepped up with the lefties were batting. Shamsi's spell opened up the game from one side and the bowlers made my life easier. Full credit, whoever came on did their job.

Dasun Shanaka | Losing skipper: We were targetting 140-150. We knew it would turn and wouldn't be easy in the later parts of the game. I think the batsmen need to concentrate more in the game. We had a good start and we weren't able to capitalize. Credit to the South African bowlers, they read the wicket really well and varied their pace. We should have looked for partnerships instead of the big shots. We need to change our approach in the middle overs. It is a major concern and we need to come up with better plans in the future for the World Cup. The mindset and the approach need to change in the boys. We should have a strong mindset and have the belief that we could do well.

Tabraiz Shamsi | MoM: I am just one part of the unit and I just do my job on the day. We have quite a few quality bowlers in our attack. These pitches take a lot more turn than the ones back home. We need to use it to our advantage and you can see the quality in out bowling. Sri Lanka prepared spinning wickets and we fought fire with fire. I put my heart and soul into the team. It's just the emotions of my hard work coming out in my celebrations.

22:46 Local Time: In a world of no-contests, this one takes the cake. 104 was never going to challenge, agreed, but South Africa have been utterly professional in their chase, and Sri Lanka have looked utterly dispirited. Quinton looked like he was having a net out there, going through with his shots and making sure the momentum never shifted. He drove, swept, reverse swept, rode his luck, and did all of it with some authority. Shanaka's captaincy too was quite strange, getting his best spinner, Hasaranga, only after the powerplay despite the other bowlers just not looking penetrative. But again, it's their batting that has come back to haunt them. Sure the pitch wasn't the easiest, but with a few soft dismissals and some poor shot selection, they dug a hole for themselves. It tells you a story when a part time offie has a three-fer. Here come the presentations ..

Jayawickrama to de Kock, byes, FOUR, hah, and some anti-climactic salt-rubbing byes. Quinton wants to reverse sweep, but the ball spins past him, past the keeper, past everyone. It'll do though, 2-0 ..

Praveen Jayawickrama [1.0-0-12-0] is back into the attack

3 runs | 36 balls

de Silva to Markram, FOUR, drilled down. He wants the MoM. And he's pumped this with some authority, with a whippy checked drive, beating mid-off

de Silva to de Kock, 1 run, opens his bat face now, after commiting forward to guide it through point

de Silva to de Kock, 2 runs, quite a nice freebie down leg. Quinton swats it really fine, but KP, the keeper, smartly anticipates and gets in the way and cuts off some of its timing to keep it to a couple

de Silva to Markram, 1 run, steps out, gets to the pitch of it, and flicks it down to long-on

de Silva to Markram, no run, presses forward, settling behind the line in nudging it softly to leg

de Silva to de Kock, 1 run, a room-making inside-out over extra cover

Dhananjaya de Silva [1.0-0-9-0] is back into the attack

Hasaranga to Markram, no run, flighted on off, solid leaning smother

Hasaranga to de Kock, 1 run, fuller, QdK steps down, clipping off his legs, round the corner

Hasaranga to de Kock, 2 runs, spinning in on middle, length, tucked away through square leg

Hasaranga to de Kock, FOUR, overcompensates, overcooks and gets overly smashed. Quinton doesn't have to do much, he can stay his ground, flay through the line, and hammer it through extra cover. Some way to bring up a personal fifty!

Hasaranga to Markram, 1 run, short again, punched straight down the ground