Marchant de Lange said he followed the advice of injured fellow pace bowler Vernon Philander and kept it simple as he emulated the latter’s dream start to his Test career in Durban on Saturday.
“Vernon told me to stay calm, keep it simple and to stick to what I know,” De Lange said.
Philander, who was left out of the second match against Sri Lanka with a knee injury, had taken 24 wickets in his first three Tests earlier in the season.
De Lange (21) also got his international career off to an impressive start, bagging 4 for 60 on the first day of the second Test after replacing Philander in the South Africa team.
Sri Lanka fought back in the final session of the first day’s play after De Lange rocked them early on by taking two wickets in his first three overs to have the visitors reeling at 47 for two.
At stumps, Sri Lanka were 289 for seven after they had mounted a comeback through Thilan Samaraweera and their own debutant, Dinesh Chandimal.
Precarious
The pair came together when the score was on a precarious 162 for five and added 111 off 224 balls before Chandimal was dismissed for 58.
He took a swipe at a poor delivery from Morne Morkel, which was wide outside off-stump, to be caught behind by Mark Boucher.
It was a disappointing shot after he had played responsibly for his maiden half-century, which came off 188 balls.
Samaraweera was unbeaten on 86, from 218 deliveries, at the close of play, for his 28th Test 50.
Returning figures of four for 60, the only blot on De Lange’s copybook was a dropped catch at mid-on, just before tea, though it was a difficult chance.
He opened his account with the wicket of Tharanga Paranavitana (12), who played a careless shot off a fuller delivery, to give a thick edge to Boucher.
“I was full of joy and very excited with my first wicket,” said De Lange, whose native language is Afrikaans.
Stumps
“At first there was quite a bit of movement off the seam but if you put in the hard yards you would definitely get something out of the wicket.”
Kumar Sangakkara, facing his third ball of the morning, poked his bat out to a much better ball from De Lange and edged to the keeper for nought.
The debutant’s third wicket was the soft dismissal of Angelo Mathews (30), who played a low full toss straight back to the bowler, and his last wicket, that of Thisara Perera (12), ensured stumps were called three balls before the end of the 90th over.
Imran Tahir grabbed the wicket of Tillakaratne Dilshan (47) as the visiting captain tried to slog him over fine leg but found the hands of Morkel instead.
The Sri Lankans lost concentration at crucial times and Mahela Jayawardene was no exception.
After scoring his 10 000th run, the ninth Test batsman to do so, he looked on target for another big innings but, on 47, a delivery from Morkel went through the bat-pad gap and removed Jayawardene’s off-stump.
“Marchant was on the button from ball one,” said veteran Proteas all-rounder Jacques Kallis.
“Sometimes guys take a while to settle, but he took to it like a duck to water.
“I think any worries about our bowling attack have now been put to rest as there are plenty of guys lining up.” — Sapa