Long wait for limited fun

The sell-out crowd had very little to cheer during a two-and-a-half hour delay, but they were brought to life by a hair-raising take from Dilshan Munaweera to dismiss Richard Levi in the first over. Levi attempted to heave a Nuwan Kulasekara slower ball to the leg side, but only managed a top-edge that flew high over mid-on. Munaweera turned quickly and sprinted back, and though he didn't look like making the ground while the ball was in the air, threw in a perfectly timed full-length dive to snatch it with both hands.

There's no time to play a ball on its merits amid the frenzy of a seven-over match and AB de Villiers' six in Rangana Herath's second over was perhaps the best example of that. With de Villiers shaping to slog sweep, Herath dropped it slightly short, but the batsman went through with the shot anyway, backing towards the leg side to launch Herath over long on.

de Villiers has already shown off his full-length dive to run out batsmen in an international, but it was on show again in Hambantota, this time with the keeper's gloves on. Mahela Jayawardene and Tillakaratne Dilshan stuttered on a single that needed to be run sharply, and although de Villiers was standing almost a pitch length back to Morne Morkel, zoomed towards the stumps quickly, collected the throw from cover on the run and threw himself outstretched at the stumps to find Dilshan inches short.

South Africa had a below par outing in the field by their standards, but the worst spill was off Kumar Sangakkara, when he top edged a Jacques Kallis short ball in the fifth over. The ball flew high into the night sky, and Albie Morkel set himself nicely at midwicket but couldn't hold on. Sangakkara had ambled to the other end, thinking he would be out, but upon seeing the drop, turned and completed a second run. Thankfully for Albie Morkel, he was out later in the over.