Paterson's 'dirty work' shines for South Africa

Dane Paterson is from the Western, not the Eastern, Cape. But he also knows about struggle. Born into a cricket culture crowded with bowlers taller, leaner, nastier, quicker and – eventually – younger, how could he not?

Brought on to bowl the seventh over with the new ball – his 16th over of Sri Lanka's first innings and the eighth before lunch – Paterson saw Kusal Mendis stab his first, wide, effort airborne and marginally out the reach of Tristan Stubbs in the gully and away for four. Mendis defended the rest of the over save for the fourth ball, which beat his uncertain prod but hit nothing.

Paterson pitched the first delivery of his next over outside Dhananjaya de Silva's off stump. The ball veered away a smidgen, and De Silva's edge flew to Markram at second slip.

Two balls later, Mendis left a delivery that snuck inward and kissed the very top of the bails.

Another two balls later, Lahiru Kumara had a hefty go at an effort that curved across him. Kumara was able to lay a decent chunk of willow on leather, and the ball streaked through the air with violence. But only as far as the gully, where Marco Jansen found a way to fold his long left lever of an arm and take a stunning catch.

With that, the Lankans crashed from 297/5 to 298/8. They had been 61 runs behind when that over started and would have been hopeful of earning a significant lead. By the end of the over, they were wondering how big their deficit would be.

Paterson had embarked on those six fateful balls with only the wicket of Dinesh Chandimal – caught behind off a straightening delivery after tea on Friday – to lean on from his spells of eight and seven overs. He bowled another seven on Saturday, and completed his first five-wicket-haul in his sixth Test and his 36th year when an away swinger took Vishwa Fernando's edge on its way into Kyle Verreynne's gloves. His dismissal of Chandimal ended a stand of 109 with Pathum Nissanka, and De Silva and Mendis had established themselves – scoring 14 off 26 and 16 off 27 – before Paterson removed them.

It doesn't get better than that for someone who said before he knew he was going to play in the match, as a replacement for the injured Gerald Coetzee, that he would "prefer to do the holding job, the dirty work" while the likes of Kagiso Rabada, Jansen and Keshav Maharaj got on with taking the wickets and with them the glory.

Paterson would, he didn't quite say, have been satisfied to be the donkey bowler. Maybe the band thought that was his role. They did, after all, play "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" during at least one of his spells.

As it turned out, Paterson bowled fewer overs than any of the other frontline members of the attack but was as threatening. And, of course, he took more wickets than any of them. There was nothing dirty about his 5/71.

"At the age of 35 you never know when you're done with international cricket," Paterson told a press conference. Indeed, he felt the effects of the strong westerly that he bowled all of his 22 overs into: "My hairline took more of a beating than my body yesterday. But one person has to lift their hand up, and I did."

Consequently, what might have been a Lankan advantage became a shortfall of 30 runs. They would have to strike hard and fast on a pitch that was at its best for batting to retain a say in the direction of the match.