Fervez Maharoof replaced Malinga, and nearly took out Kallis in his opening over. A good length ball down the channel saw Kallis flashing; the edge flew hard slip-wards, and Jayawardene went flying to his right, got a hand to it, but couldn't hang on.

Lanka's lack of runs had meant that Jayawardene needed to dilute his early aggression; unable to keep a second slip, he compromised by standing in the no-man's land between first and second, and failed to latch on to a catch that would have been a comfortable head high affair for a regular second slip.

Unable to find the boundaries, the South Africans then took to some desperate running between wickets, and were lucky to survive several close calls. In one passage of play, in the 10th over, Malinga missed with two throws off successive balls from the same position at mid-on - Smith benefited from the first miss and Kallis from the second.

Vaas had gone 6-0-9-1; Smith, who played 15 dot balls out of 23 from the bowler, kept trying everything he knew, walking around his crease, repeatedly trying to upset the bowler. He managed a desperate mow over midwicket for a four that brought up the 50 of the partnership off 61 balls. And then, in Vaas's next over, he finally pulled it off, going leg side, making room, and using brute force to hit the bowler flat, hard and long, clearing the very long boundary at long off.

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