‘Accolades mean a lot more when you win’ – Keshav Maharaj

“Accolades mean a lot more when you can get the team to win a Test match,” he said after stumps on the first day in Colombo. “Hopefully, in the second innings, I can put in another performance and be on the winning end of it.”

Maharaj, the only specialist spinner in the attack, bowled a mammoth spell of 25 overs, and had sent down 41.1 overs by the end of the innings. His career-best figures were also the best returns by a visiting bowler in Sri Lanka.

“I did get a little bit of assistance off the wicket,” he said. “It is a little bit different here to Galle, the ball skids on, which showed with the lbw and top-edges off the sweep. I feel I also did beat some of the batsmen in the air with the ball dipping on them.

“South Africa have always played one spinner back home. I am used to doing the holding job, I would like to think I did it decently today.”

Maharaj didn’t have the greatest of starts to the series – he failed to claim a wicket in 17 overs in the first innings in Galle. However, he found his rhythm in the second innings to claim four wickets.

He said he kept bowling in the lead-up to the second Test to keep his rhythm, and worked closely with Claude Henderson, the South Africa bowling coach, and Prasanna Agoram, the performance analyst.

South Africa were bundled out for 126 and 73 in Galle, and Maharaj said their batsmen will need to show better application to save the series. “Their batsmen showed the application that our batsmen need to take,” he said. “You don’t need to take the risk, there will be an opportunity to score.”

Sri Lanka posted 338 in the first innings, the last-wicket pair of Akila Dananjaya and Rangana Herath adding 74.