Amla the tortured and the torturer as SA drip runs into bottomless bucket

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Colombo

Chinese water torture has nothing on the runs that SA dripped into a bottomless bucket at Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) in Colombo yesterday.

It was difficult to tell whether Hashim Amla was the torturer or among the tortured. He scored an undefeated 139 and was at the crease for more than eight hours or all but 36 minutes of his team’s entire innings.

“He was really patient and he applied himself very well,” coach Russell Domingo said. “He stuck to his gameplan.”

But Amla would have needed to score exactly double what he made for SA to match Sri Lanka’s 421. Instead, they were dismissed for 282. At stumps on the third day, the home side had reached 11/0 in their second innings, a lead of 150.

At times, play was so slow that the match seemed to moonwalk backwards. SA eked 65 runs out of the 30 overs that comprised the morning session, 71 in the 29 bowled between lunch and tea, and 48 from the 23.1 they faced in the third session before their innings was euthanised.

From the moment Angelo Mathews won the toss, SA’s plan had been to forge as close to the Lankans’ total as possible. And to hell, they seemed to decide, with how long it took them to get there what with a 1-0 series lead to lean on.

That approach did not make for entertaining play but there will be no gripes if defeat is staved off. Domingo described SA’s gameplan as “to get what we could with the bat” but acknowledged that was a fluid concept.

“It would have been great to get another 100 runs, but it would also have been great to bat for another three or four hours even if we only got another 50 runs.”

However, playing for a draw from the second day, which SA have been doing since the start of their innings an hour before tea on Friday, is rarely the sensible option.

Were SA ready to survive a marathon fourth innings - like they did against Australia in Adelaide in November, 2012 when they stayed alive for 124.3 overs - and against India at the Wanderers in December, when 136 overs were conquered?

“I think they are,” Domingo said. “I’m sure they are. They’ve done it before.”

But Adelaide and the Wanderers are not SSC. If anyone can win on this cadaver of a pitch, which makes last week’s desert landing strip in Galle look alive with possibility by comparison, Sri Lanka can.

Their medusa, a spin attack hissing with Rangana Herath, Dilruwan Perera and Ajantha Mendis, may yet spit in SA’s faces and deny them the glory of winning a test series here for the first time since 1993.

Yesterday, Perera, a stealth bomber of an off-spinner, quietly took 5/69. Herath’s pin-point left-arm stodge earned him 4/71. If anything, they will pose an even bigger threat to SA in the second innings.

The visitors will hope Imran Tahir, who has had a disappointing series so far, can do something similar to limit the Lankans’ lead.

“Imran has a big role to play, especially with all the rough outside the left-hander’s off-stump,” Domingo said.

Amla was dropped on 10 and 93. Unflustered, he put on half-century stands with Faf du Plessis and AB de Villiers, did not blink when Perera removed De Villiers and Quinton de Kock with consecutive deliveries, and shared useful partnerships all the way down the order.

No-one knows if he changed his gloves. Yes, he is that good.