South Africa “go searching”, but still favoured to beat Sri Lanka

South Africa "go searching", but still favoured to beat Sri Lanka

Makhaya Ntini is a big fella these days. As in broad and muscular, and in a way that would have been a bad idea while he was the most indefatigable fast bowler in the game. His eyes are softer, his high-rise hair is flecked with a gentling grey, and there is an easiness about him that has been a long time coming. At 47, he knows he owns the space he holds.

His spirit now booms like his voice always has. He used to bounce as he walked, every step an exclamation mark of the dedication and defiance he needed to leap life's speedbumps. The jaunty jolt of his junior years has smoothed itself into a graceful glide with just a smidgen of a swagger. But there remains about him an irresistible enthusiasm.

Especially here, in the Eastern Cape of his birth, rise to prominence, and homecoming from all that, the glide is interrupted frequently by well-wishers and selfie-snappers. Ntini not only obliges them, he welcomes them. It's a duty, but it is performed with respect for what it is.

And invariably with the same smile, as sweeping as St George's Park's Duckpond Pavilion, we have known for all these years; albeit that it is beamed from between a wrinkle or two nowadays.

If there is a friendlier human being in the world than Makhaya Ntini they are in danger of disappearing into their own happiness, never to be seen again but remembered with wonder and love.

The Lankans' target, 348, is 77 runs bigger than any team have scored to win a Test at this ground. They reached stumps 143 runs away and with five wickets in hand, and are the more likely of the teams to slip to defeat on Monday. But that is a long way from being decided.

Dane Paterson is the most Ntiniesque of the current crop of South Africa's bowlers, and he added two wickets to the five he took in the first innings. The most compelling subplot for his team on Monday will be whether he can complete a 10-wicket haul.

Paterson's main competition is sure to come from Keshav Maharaj, who has also taken two in the innings and will have the conditions in his favour for the last day's play.

Sri Lanka seemed to have found a way to stay in the contest when they took five wickets for 91 runs in the morning session. The first of them was the most consequential: Tristan Stubbs was run out for 47 amid the confusion that reigned after he refused Temba Bavuma's call for a second run off Lahiru Kumara.

Stubbs and Bavuma were looking balefully at each other as the throw came in from midwicket, and Stubbs' last act was to sacrifice himself for the cause. He and Bavuma shared 104 in a partnership that had looked unbreakable until then. When it was ended, Bavuma stood mid-pitch with his gloved hands on his helmeted head for a long moment, wondering how he and Stubbs had made a mess of the moment.

Maybe Bavuma was still thinking about that when he tried to sweep Prabath Jayasuriya and was bowled around his legs for 66 – his fourth consecutive score of 50 or more in a series in which he averages 81.75.

There was more circus cricket in the first over after lunch. Kagiso Rabada lashed Kumara's first two balls through mid-on and midwicket for fours. The aggressive Kumara responded by sending a bouncer into Rabada's jaw via his shoulder. Rabada swung cross-batted at the next ball, another short delivery, and was caught behind. The incoming Paterson managed to avoid another Kumara bouncer, but not the second. It clanged into the batter's helmet.

A lively stand of 27 off 20 between Maharaj and Paterson pushed the target toward 350, which would have been breached and then some were it not for the study in discipline that was the bowling of Jayasuriya, whose 5/129 was his 10th five-wicket haul and his first outside Sri Lanka.

South Africa were dismissed for 317 four overs after lunch, and Rabada struck with the 14th delivery of the fourth innings by trapping Dimuth Karunaratne with an inswinger. But another 42 all out – Sri Lanka's lowest total, which they suffered in the first Test at Kingsmead – was not on the cards.

"It requires a lot of patience to bowl on this surface, especially as the ball gets older and softer; the pitch becomes more placid," Maharaj told a press conference. "But we did go searching a little bit. Hopefully tomorrow we'll go back to old-fashioned Test cricket. We earned the right to go searching, but probably not for as long as we did."

The South Africans' frustration mounted, and with it came special attention for Kamindu Mendis, who was happy to mix backchat with batting. The leader of the home side's pack was Jansen, who sent a bouncer into Mendis' helmet – and seemed to give the Sri Lankan a piece of his mind after a perfunctory, "You alright?" Nothing looked untoward from a distance, but it was clear all present knew they had a fight on their hands.

Maharaj said the aggression had happened "organically" rather than as an orchestrated plan: "[Mendis] looked to play a few shots. And fast bowlers, you know how they react. Words were exchanged from both sides. But it was all in the nature and spirit of the game."

Indeed, Maharaj draped an arm around Mendis' shoulder at the non-striker's end and the pair seemed to have a friendly exchange. But the Lankan edged the second ball he faced after Jansen felled him, and Kyle Verreynne dived forward to take a fine catch on the bowling crease.

The bowler was Maharaj, who said: "I think we got the reward for a bit of banter on the field."

Half-century stands between Angelo Mathews and Mendis and Dhananjaya de Silva and Kusal Mendis – the latter worth 83 and unbroken – earned the Lankans a shot at what would be an epic win. They are probably a few runs closer to their goal than Bavuma's team would have liked, but the see-saw remains tilted in South Africa's favour.

Anything else except victory would be a shock to the system of a team whose ambition of winning the WTC final at Lord's in June remains alive.