Lunch South Africa 191 and 233 for 3 (Stubbs 70*, Bavuma 64*, Jayasuriya 2-94) lead Sri Lanka 42 for 382 runs
Their unbeaten stand of 144 runs took South Africa to a lead of 382 by lunch, with Bavuma on 64 and Stubbs on 70.
The most successful fourth innings chase at this venue is 340, so Sri Lanka would already need to break records if they are to even dream of another miraculous victory at Kingsmead. They created a chance off Stubbs in this session, Vishwa Fernando found the outside edge of the bat only for Angelo Mathews to capitalize on the opportunity by diving low to his left at slip.
There were, furthermore, half-hearted lbw cries and, late in the session, a very difficult catching opportunity created by goalkeeper Kusal Mendis, as he moved to his left in anticipation of a return sweep, again by Stubbs. But to a large extent, Sri Lanka’s bowlers remained silent. The speed of the rapids had decreased, as expected, given the amount of bowling they have had to bowl over the last three days. And the surface wasn’t getting especially big for left-arm spinner Prabath Jayasuriya.
Bavuma hit his first ball of the day for four, bowling Lahiru Kumara through mid-wicket. But to a large extent, the batsmen settled in the first half hour of play, hitting singles, while Kumara fell short of the batsmen and Jayasuriya bowled the ball, looking for those first breakthroughs.
Stubbs also remained silent. His first boundary was a well-placed reverse sweep beyond the slip of Jayasuriya, in the eighth over of the day. Apart from that one chance at Vishwa’s bowling, however, he seemed almost entirely in control, his outside edge rarely being beaten, although the seamers did get past his inside edge to increase lbw appeals from time to time. The bounce on this Kingsmead surface means the ball probably went over the stumps. Stubbs was especially good against Jayasuriya, taking advantage of his length errors with particular severity, to hit him through point or take him through cover.
Bavuma used the depth of the crease against the spinner and occasionally ventured into the hard flat sweep, which brought him a boundary. He reached his half-century with the 112th ball he faced. Stubbs got there with his 121st ball.
With bowler Dhananjaya de Silva bowling some cheap overs as Sri Lanka awaited the second new ball, batting became even easier for the right-handers. Stubbs hit a huge six off Dhananjaya at long on in the overs approaching lunch.
