Gloomy ending to Lankan tour match

As might have been expected ever since the whole of the first day was lost to rain Sri Lanka's three-day match against KwaZulu-Natal at The Oval in Pietermaritzburg fizzled out to a tame draw on Saturday.

Bad light forced the players off the field 35 minutes after tea on the last day and shortly afterwards everyone concerned decided that they'd had enough. At that stage Natal were 299 for five in their first innings in reply to Sri Lanka's 257 for eight.

When the players came off both the Natal captain Errol Stewart and Wade Wingfield were not out on 39.

In almost every respect the match, played on one of South Africa's most historic and charming grounds, was a thorough disappointment. In all 162 out of 312 overs were lost to the elements and although Sri Lankan captain Sanath Jayasuriya said afterwards that he felt his team were sufficiently prepared for the first Test match starting at Kingsmead on Boxing Day, it is difficult to know what prompts this optimism.

After stuttering through their first innings on Saturday, the Sri Lankans then had to endure a 168-run opening stand from Mark Bruyns and Doug Watson before the touring bowlers finally began to take wickets.

It is true that Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas sat this one out, but it has to be said that there was no great penetration from the likes of Nuwan Zoysa and Dilhara Fernando, who are expected to back Vaas up in the Test match.

Still, once the opening pair had been parted - Bruyns eventually went for 89 and Watson for 81 - the Sri Lankans did manage to take five wickets in all between lunch and tea.

One of them, however, was as a result of an extraordinary blunder from third umpire Wilf Diedricks. Jon Kent, possibly the most in-form of the Natal batsmen, had just 1 when he hit Upul Chandana fiercely towards Tillekeratne Dilshan at silly mid off.

The ball rebounded off Dilshan into the hands of wicketkeeper Romesh Kaluwitharana and the Sri Lankans' appeal for the catch was referred to the third umpire.

Television replays clearly showed that the ball had bounced at least a foot before it struck Dilshan but, inexplicably, Diedricks did not pick this up and Kent was given out. It was an astonishing decision and clearly infuriated the Natalians, although Stewart, showing admirable restraint, would say only that he had been "perplexed" by it.

Unfortunately, it was such a poor piece of umpiring that it overshadowed almost everything else on the day, almost everything except the fact that the Sri Lankans appear to be badly underprepared for the Test match.

For the most part they batted and bowled indifferently in Pietermaritzburg and they do not look to have fully adjusted to South African conditions. Jayasuriya said that his team had played enough cricket and "We just need to get a start". This might yet prove to be the understatement of the summer.