WATCH: Marco Jansen delivers career best performance, picks 7 wickets against Sri Lanka
New Delhi: Left-arm pacer Marco Jansen delivered a career-best performance, claiming 7/13 as Sri Lanka were skittled out for a record-low total of 42 in their first innings during the Durban Test against South Africa on Thursday. Lasting just 13.5 overs, Sri Lanka’s total marked the lowest score ever against South Africa, who had earlier been dismissed for 191 on Day 2, securing a commanding 149-run lead.
A total of 16 wickets have fallen so far at Kingsmead after rain washed out play on Day 1 following lunch. Despite what were expected to be favorable batting conditions – with Mike Haysman noting a seam movement of 0.9 degrees and swing at 0.5 degrees – South Africa’s pace attack, led by Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee, and Kagiso Rabada, tore through Sri Lanka’s batting. It took the trio just 83 balls to dismantle the Lankan lineup. In the challenging seaming conditions, Sri Lankan batsmen struggled to apply themselves, with Jansen making history by becoming only the second player after Australia’s Hugh Trumble (1904) to take a 7-wicket haul in under seven overs in a Test innings.
In total, five Sri Lanka batsmen – Dinesh Chandimal, Kusal Mendis, Prabhath Jayasuriya, Vishwa Fernando, and Asitha Fernando – were dismissed for ducks, leaving Kamindu Mendis to top-score once again with 13 runs. When South Africa took the field for their second innings, they were one bowler down, as seam-bowling all-rounder Wiaan Mulder was unavailable due to a fractured finger he sustained while batting.
Sri Lanka’s total of 42 is their lowest in Test cricket, with their previous lowest being 71 against Pakistan in Kandy in 1994.
Sri Lanka’s 83 deliveries faced in their first innings is the second least by any team, with the record being held by South Africa, who were bowled out for 30 runs in just 75 balls (12.3 overs) against England at Edgbaston in 1924.
Marco Jansen’s 7/13 is the third-best bowling figure by a South African pacer at home and the best by a South African pacer in this century.