Had Darryl Cullinan not been dropped at nought the story certainly would have had a different script written. Roshan Mahanama who eagerly awaits to pounce on anything dived in front and obscured Arjnuna Ranatunga's view at first slip and the catch flew between the two of them. Cullinan profitting from this god given opportunity made a century and also helped resurrect his career which seemed to be on the wane after a disastrous tour of Australia where Shane Warne spun a web around him.
In this Test Ranatunga's 'hit man' Chaminda Vaas showed the first signs of his ankle injury which continued to worry him throughout the tour and his absence from the Second Test line up was a great setback to the team and it enormously weakened the attack.
The Centurion Park pitch was another good one. It surprised the Lankans to see such good pitches which prompted skipper Ranatunga to remark that these two pitches are the best he had played on in his near 15-year career.
This Test saw the inclusion of gangling left arm paceman Nuwan Zoysa who was flown in to strengthen the attack. He made an impressive beginning, but was unfortunate to suffer a twisted knee and that was that for Zoysa. If this injury not struck him he would have been difficult to negotiate.
At the half way stage the Lankans were nicely poised to do the Proteas having gained a 103-run lead when they began their second phase against the home team.
Allan Donald who no doubt will be one of fast bowling's greats of this generation was sitting on a powder keg requiring one more wicket to join the 200 Test wicket team and also add 1000 first class scalps to his career.
With this milestone looking him in the eye, it was to be expected that he would try to first achieve this target and then explode to rip the heart out of the Sri Lankan batting what with defeat staring them if the Lankans were allowed to go on and build a total that would put the pressure on the home batsmen.
But the batting mockery that the Lankans put on show in the second innings, could be included in Ripley's believe it or not. After Jayasuriya presented Donald his milestones, the batsmen to follow just threw away their wickets, clueless as to what to do in a situation like this.
What the batsmen had to do was to first settle down and push the ball around waiting for the loose one to bang it to the ropes. But it looked as they were on board the Titanic as they fell to their doom.
It was a batting effort that no one would want to see repeated. It was a Test they could well have wrapped up had their batting been studded with more purpose.
The South Africans seemed delighted when they were set something like 226 for victory, when at one stage it looked as though they would have to chase something like over 400.
At one stage the 226 too looked imposing for them with Muralidaran threatening to crash through. It was then that skipper Cronje showed that 'attack is the best form of defence' as he sailed into Muralidaran hitting him for sixes that flew well out of the ground, to steady the batting ship and take them to an easy victory.
This was a Test that the Lankans were made to rue. It showed their inability to face a situation on its merits. Had they not rushed their strokes but played more sensibly they would not have had to go down in defeat.
In this game too Cullinan was lucky to survive an LBW decision off Pushpakumara and he made his second century which cemented the Proteas first innings. (More tomorrow)