Six not out, and eight wickets

Sri Lanka needed 304 at Kingsmead in February 2019 and were 226 for nine in the 70th over. The card’s tenth-wicket note reads: 50 runs in 78 balls, Perera 47, Fernando 5, extras 3. The stand finished on 78, the total on 304 for nine, and the result line reads Sri Lanka won by 1 wicket.

The first three innings, in a ledger

South Africa 235: Quinton de Kock 80, Temba Bavuma 47, Vishwa Fernando four for 62. Sri Lanka 191: Perera 51, Dale Steyn four for 48. South Africa 259: Faf du Plessis 90, de Kock 55, Lasith Embuldeniya five for 66 on debut, Fernando four for 71. The target was 304, and Sri Lanka were 83 for three at the close of the third day, bad light and then rain having ended it early.

Full scorecard: South Africa v Sri Lanka, 1st Test, Durban, 13–16 February 2019 →

What the days held

The close-of-play lines: Sri Lanka 49 for one, South Africa 126 for four, Sri Lanka 83 for three, end of match. Both first innings were over inside sixty overs. De Kock’s 80 came from 94 balls and du Plessis’s 90 from 182. The card lists twelve reviews across the four days, with the umpire and the outcome for each, and two stoppages for bad light on the first and third evenings, and one for rain.

The fourth day to 226 for nine

Oshada Fernando, on debut, caught for 37 at 110. Niroshan Dickwella caught and bowled by Steyn for 0 two balls later. Perera and Dhananjaya de Silva put on 96, de Silva 48, before de Silva was leg before to Keshav Maharaj at 206 and Suranga Lakmal caught first ball. Embuldeniya caught for 4 at 215. Kasun Rajitha leg before for 1 at 226. Nine down, 78 needed.

Seventy-eight

Perera was 81 at 226. He reached his hundred from 146 balls and his 150 from 200, with twelve fours and five sixes in all, and finished 153 not out from 200 balls in 309 minutes. Fernando faced 27 balls in 73 minutes for 6 not out. The second new ball was taken at 80.5 overs with the stand in progress. Sri Lanka’s 300 came up in the 86th over, and the match ended in the same over.

Kagiso Rabada bowled 22.3 overs for 97 and one wicket. Maharaj three for 71, Steyn two for 71, Duanne Olivier two for 35, Vernon Philander eight overs for 13 and the wicket of the captain, Dimuth Karunaratne. Sri Lanka had chosen to field on the first morning, and the card’s series line reads Sri Lanka led the two-match series 1-0.

The other guy

Perera is the player of the match, for 51 and 153 not out, and the card’s coverage list puts his innings beside Headingley 2019 and Kolkata 2001. Fernando’s match is the one underneath.

Four for 62 and four for 71, the most wickets on either side. Then 27 balls at the end for six runs, during which the man at the other end made 72. Eight wickets and an unbeaten six is a match that would be the story on most cards, and here it is the second line.

The stand of 78 is, by the record, the highest last-wicket partnership to win a Test. The umpires were Aleem Dar and Richard Kettleborough, the match was over in four days of five, and it is Test number 2347.

What the card holds

A 153 not out from 226 for nine. A note giving a tenth-wicket fifty with the number eleven’s share as five. A bowler with eight wickets and 27 balls of survival. Two debutants, one with a five-for. And a margin of one wicket, on a card that records 78 runs for the last one.

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No. 23 in The Other Guy, a series of 24.

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