Amla’s woes continue as South Africa build on lead

Lunch South Africa 392 and 136 for 4 (Elgar 55) lead Sri Lanka 110 by 418 runsLive scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Hashim Amla would have liked to have walked out to bat for his 100th Test at the Wanderers next week with his reputation reasserted. Instead he will take guard with continued worries about his form after a duck on the third morning at Cape Town extended his unproductive run.

Amla’s sequence without a half-century now stretches to 10 innings, his latest failure coming with a fifth-ball nought in an otherwise dreary session of little consequence in which South Africa, resuming with a lead of 317 and all wickets remaining, engaged in some cricketing arithmetic for two hours as they totted enough runs for a fail-safe declaration. And then some.

Presumably Amla might now join those malcontents who thought, with good reason, that South Africa should have enforced the follow-on with a first-innings lead of 282 and sought to wrap the game up in three days. After all, only three sides have ever lost a Test after putting the opposition back in and, having dismissed Sri Lanka in 43 overs, South …

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