Umpires steal the show

Their backs firmly nestled against the wall and the ignominy of a series defeat stretching before them, the South African's bravely fought themselves back into this game throughout the day. Cruelly, with the match remaining evenly poised throughout the day, they lost two crucial wickets minutes before the close of play and now have a lead of 137 with just 2 wickets remaining.

In the morning session the South African fast bowlers quickly wrapped up the Sri Lanka innings, taking 6 wickets for 22 runs and limiting the Sri Lanka lead to 55 runs. Then, led by Jacques Kallis with a fine 87, they battled hard to compile a winning lead.

However Chaminda Vaas and Muttiah Muralitharan struck in the closing overs to swing the initiative back to Sri Lanka. Shaun Pollock (20) was well caught at the wicket by Kumar Sangakkara to end a 33 run partnership for the seventh wicket. In the next over Jacques Kallis (87) tried to pull Sri Lanka's premier spinner, paid the price for moving too far across his stumps and was bowled behind his legs.

His dismissal brought to an end a defiant 208 ball innings that spanned nearly four hours and had included six boundaries and one straight six. Beginning his innings in an aggressive fashion he raced to 30 off 36 balls at the luncheon interval. For the rest of the day he faced only the spinners and was far more subdued. Content to pick up the singles he only occasionally broke out of his shell to hit over the top.

Against Muralitharan he had plumped for Cullinan's strategy in the first test match. Taking an off stump guard he moved across his stumps to negate Murali's sharp turn and looked to pick up singles on the on side. Until being bowled behind his legs, the danger of such a ploy, the strategy had worked well, despite him not reading one of the off spinners arm balls.

Whilst Jacques Kallis may have been the cricketer in the limelight, the umpires were once again the focus of attention. Their performance in this match has added much weight to the arguments of those who advocate the greater use of technology and the selection of two neutral umpires.

Quite what Darryl Harper was watching, when he gave out Arjuna Ranatunga LBW to a short delivery from Hayward that rattled into his hip, we cannot be certain, but, it surely cant have been the ball. The ball was already 4 inches above the stumps when it hit the 36 year old left hander.

The South African's, with some good reason, are silently seething about the quality of the umpiring in the series and are convinced that they are the ones getting the rough end of the deal. Their reactions to the umpires decisions have grown increasingly petulant and one feared that they could erupt. The fact that Sri Lanka too have now become the victims of injustice, will have hopefully placated their anger, and temporarily at least, postponed an unsavoury incident.

Ranatunga was though not the only player to feel aggrieved. Jonty Rhodes (33), who in partnership with Kallis put on 71 runs for the fifth wicket and in doing so was changing the course of the match, was given out off bat and pad when the ball clearly touched neither glove nor bat.

Lance Klusner (4) was given out caught behind, much to the jubilant delight of the Sri Lankans, when television replays identified clear daylight between bat and ball. The reaction of the player spoke volumes for the feelings of the player. The wry smile indicating an increasing expectation and tacit acceptance of the poor decision-making.

The South African fight back in the morning session was spearheaded by Shaun Pollock, who took 3 wickets for 22 runs and, crucially, removed Marvan Attapattu (120) in the sixth over of the day, trapping him LBW.

Three overs later Darryl Harper prematurely terminated Arjuna Ranatunga's exciting innings. Reaching the half-century off 72 balls, he hit nine fours and one six. No longer playing for his place, having announced his retirement at the end of the series, he played with greater freedom than he has down for sometime.

After his dismissal the lower order crumpled. Kumar Dharmasena (3) was caught at the wicket, Chaminda Vaas (4) was snaffled in the gully and both Nuwan Zoysa (3) and Muralitharan (0) were both cleaned bowled.