Philander strikes but Amla’s lean run continues

Tea Sri Lanka 110 and 17 for 1 (Silva 7*, Mendis 4*) require a further 490 runs to beat South Africa 392 and 224 for 7 dec (Elgar 55, Lakmal 4-69)Live 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.

Reality was less encouraging. In eight overs up to tea, they lost Dimuth Karunaratne, who was set up nicely by Vernon Philander before he drove airily at an inswinger to be bowled between bat and pad.

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 …

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