Heroes, zeros in Sri Lanka

30 July 2014 - 02:00 By Daryll Cullinan
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South Africa can look back on a very successful tour of Sri Lanka.

Although the Proteas scraped home in the second Test match and played a brand of cricket that was not convincing, they got the job done - and that is all that matters.

There is a fine line bet-ween success and failure, and South Africa gave no better example of this. Had they lost the match, it would have gone down as one of their worst Test performances, but now they are celebrating a series win in Sri Lanka and being the No 1 Test team in the world.

I thought Dale Steyn was once again superb.

He hardly ever disappoints and it is remarkable, but yet a stark warning, that throughout his career he has taken close on 60% of South Africa's Test cricket wickets.

For Alviro Petersen and Imran Tahir their Test careers may be over. I am almost certain it is for Tahir, while Petersen does not look capable of taking his game to the next level.

It is also now becoming obvious that if the pitch has no movement or bounce on offer, Vernon Philander is ineffectual.

It requires hard work and long spells to run in and produce on unresponsive pitches, and Philander looked in no physical shape to do this.

Finally, it was great to see Hashim Amla lead from the front with the bat, and it looks like the captaincy will take his game to even greater heights.

Well done to him and his team.

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