Amla steadies Proteas

His unbeaten innings of 157 (371 balls, 21 fours) laid the foundation for the Castle Lager Proteas to reach 353 by the close of play and reduce the overall deficit to 276 runs. More importantly from the home side’s point of view they only lost one wicket – that of AB de Villiers (88 off 211 balls, 12 fours and a six) after a partnership of 183 for the third wicket with Amla.

 

Amla and Faf du Plessis then added a further unbroken 85 runs for the fourth wicket as the Proteas got back into the habit of putting decent partnerships on the scoreboard.

 

It was Amla’s seventh score in excess of 150 and his 24^th century overall. For good measure he recorded his 24^th Test century and reached an aggregate of 7 000 runs while De Villiers took his total past 8 000.

 

It will certainly put an end to concerns over Amla’s form which have been linked to the responsibilities of captaincy. This hardly seems to be the case as his appointment as captain brought out the best in him when he scored a century – a real captain’s innings – in his second Test in charge against Sri Lanka at the Sinhalese Sports Club and followed it with a double century and a series average in excess of 100 against the West Indies.

 

His subsequent loss of form started in ODI cricket which had nothing to do with his captaincy pressures. He has only captained South Africa in 14 Test matches to date and his record is not a bad one.

 

In spite of their lack of success England bowled a lot better than the scoreboard suggests. As has been the case for most of the series Steve Finn was England’s standout bowler, making full use of the bounce available to ask the batsmen a lot of questions. He took the only wicket to fall and always commanded the utmost respect.

 

England’s problem came from the support cast who dropped both Amla and De Villiers and these misses turned out to be expensive.

 

The Proteas still need 77 runs to avoid the follow on but that is hardly an issue. One cannot see Alastair Cook wanting to enforce the follow on innings. His bowlers are unlikely to bowl the Proteas out inside 150 overs and he will want to give them the opportunity to refresh ahead of their second innings effort.

 

What will be important for them is to keep their overall lead as large as possible. There are still 180 overs left in the match and time enough for a great deal to happen.

 

Even if the match should finish in a draw there will be a lot of psychological points to score ahead of the pivotal third Test match at the Bidvest Wanderers Stadium.

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