Humble Kusal didn’t have any special plans for Proteas attack

It might not have been apparent judging by the way Kusal Perera terrorised the South African bowlers at Kingsmead on Saturday, but the Sri Lankan hero said the Proteas attack did really tax him and he only managed to secure the astonishing one-wicket victory for the tourists by sticking to his strengths.

Perera hammered a magnificent 153 not out off 200 balls, with 12 fours and five sixes, to take Sri Lanka to their target of 304, but he had to marshal the tail superbly in order to do it, adding a world record 78 for the last wicket with Vishwa Fernando, the highest last-wicket stand to win a Test match.

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“I didn’t have any sort of big plan when I started the day, I just tried to do what I could. I knew what my strengths were and tried to play to them. But the result came right in the end because of the team. The partnerships in the whole innings were great, that’s why we were able to chase 304. You can’t just mention one person or partnership, even if you scored one run, that counted to the win. All 11 of us had to bat.

“In places like these, it’s never going to be easy like in Sri Lanka. These bowlers are all top-five in the world. You never know what kinds of balls they are going to send at you, they don’t give you any room and they have so much experience. There were very few loose balls. So It’s the best Test I’ve played for Sri Lanka,” Perera said after his remarkable display.

The 28-year-old left-hander was also full of praise for Vishwa, who faced 23 balls and scored six not out, four of the runs coming from overthrows when Faf du Plessis’s run out attempt narrowly missed the stumps but no-one could back-up in time.

“All the batsmen contributed, especially Vishwa. He didn’t give his wicket away and we managed to get a partnership going, so I didn’t do it by myself. I didn’t even look at the scoreboard when Vishwa came in and we had a lot of runs to get. I just tried to play it over-by-over and get us close, little-by-little. Vishwa told me: ‘I’ll hit the ball with my body, if nothing else. You do what you can, Kusal.’

“I took a lot of strength from that. Without any fear I took the single and gave the strike to him. He did a huge job. If he had got out, there wouldn’t have been a point. I don’t know how many balls he faced, but those are valuable, valuable balls. What he faced was worth more than my runs.

“When I was batting with the tail, I knew we couldn’t win this match by just scoring singles. I was the last proper batsman left, so when the time felt right for me, I took my chances. I tried to hit to the close boundary. I had really wanted to hit two or three sixes off Steyn as we were getting closer. Thankfully I was able to do that. I think my decision making was really good,” Perera said

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