Riding on Stephen Cook’s third Test century, South African have firmly taken the command of the first Test against Sri Lanka at Port Elizabeth. The hosts were 351 for 5 at stumps on day 3 with their overall extended to 432 runs. Faf du Plessis (41*) and Quinton de Kock (42*) will resume proceedings with the bat on the fourth day.
Earlier, South Africa began their day on a fine note when Vernon Philander dismissed Dhananjaya de Silva on the very first ball of the day. The right-arm pacer bowled one in the corridor of uncertainty and induced an edge from de Silva, who, on 43 overnight, was Sri Lanka’s last hope of reducing the deficit.
On the last ball of that very over, Philander struck once again to pick up his 11th five-wicket haul in Tests. Suranga Lakmal, looking to drive an uppish delivery, checked his shot at the last moment but gave away an easy catch to Kyle Abbott at mid-on. Dushmantha Chameera and Nuwan Pradeep then tried to avoid the inevitable for some time before the former was dismissed for 19 as Sri Lanka’s innings ended on 205.
With a handy lead of 81 runs already in their hand, the South African openers-Dean Elgar and Stephen Cook began their innings in a cautious manner and added 39 runs before lunch was taken, 30 minutes from regulation time due to bad light and rain. The second session was delayed by around 20 minutes due to poor weather but it did not affect the openers as they continued to play in a dominant fashion. The openers were finding little difficulty in scoring runs and were going at almost four runs an over. The 116-run partnership for the first wicket was broken when Elgar (52) miscued a pull shot off Suranga Lakmal. The visitors would have had their second wicket soon but de Silva dropped Cook on 62 in Lakmal’s next over. The loss in concentration did not affect much as he along with Hashim Amla started playing more freely. The duo added 105 runs for the second wicket from only 19.1 overs before Amla was trapped LBW by Pradeep on 48 on the last ball of the second session. In between, Cook, with his father and former Proteas opener Jimmy Cook present in the stands, reached his third Test century by flicking Chameera.
Cook’s brilliant innings finally ended when he edged a Chameera delivery to the wicketkeeper after scoring 117. Temba Bavuma (8) was dismissed soon but du Plessis and de Kock then launched an amazing counterattack to push Sri Lanka completely on the back foot. The duo added 74 runs in only 15.2 overs before stumps was called.
With the lead well over 400, Angelo Mathews’ men will have to play out of their skin to save this Test.
Brief scores:
South Africa 286 & 351/5 (80.0 ov) lead Sri Lanka 205 by 432 runs with 5 wickets remaining.