Amla fails, Lakmal shines before South Africa declare

End of innings South Africa 392 and 224 for 7 dec (Elgar 55, Lakmal 4-69) lead Sri Lanka 110 by 506 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 phase of the Test of little consequence in which South Africa, resuming with a lead of 317 and all wickets remaining, engaged in some cricketing arithmetic for more than three hours as they totted enough runs for a fail-safe declaration. And then some.

That declaration finally came at 224 for 7, 75 minutes into the afternoon session. A lead of 506 was impregnable. Well, not quite impregnable. There was always the slight possibility that a Russian cyberattack could send cricket scoring systems across the world haywire and Sri Lanka could emerge, somewhat sheepishly, with a win late on the fourth day.

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 …

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