COLOMBO, July 27: South Africa coach Mickey Arthur blamed nerves for his team's lacklustre performance on the opening day of the first test against Sri Lanka.

Arthur criticised his players for their tentative batting as they were dismissed for 169, their lowest ever total against Sri Lanka. The hosts finished the day on 128 for two.

“We certainly threw away the advantage we had with a batting display which was very ordinary,” Arthur told reporters on Thursday.

“There was a fair amount of soft dismissals, we never got going we were slightly tentative,” he added. “Guys were feeling nervous and tentative and it came out in our batting unfortunately.”

South Africa struggled against the pace of Dilhara Fernando and the spin of Muttiah Muralitharan, who both took four-wicket hauls.

AB de Villiers provided South Africa's only resistance with 65 from 72 balls that included eight boundaries, before being last man out. “We never seem to get the momentum going and were caught between being positive and being mindful of Muralitharan -- it certainly wasn't the way we planned to play,” said Arthur.

“A performance like today helps a lot as it shows the approach that we don't want to play. I want us to play with freedom.

“We had one bad day in office but we have got four days to come back.”

Sri Lanka's coach Tom Moody praised the efforts of Fernando and Muralitharan but was disappointed with his new ball bowlers. “Our discipline with the new ball in the first hour's play was not as good as it could have been, but in the middle session we bowled particularly well,” Moody said.“Dilhara bowled superbly and has made a vast improvement after working very hard on his game during the past year.”—AFP