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Rain washes out most of day three of fourth Test

09/08/2008

England's hopes of winning the fourth Test against South Africa have taken a blow as rain meant only 17 overs were possible on the third day.

The hosts were only able to claim one wicket as the young Stuart Broad bowled Neil McKenzie. But South Africa batted well as Hashim Amla scored an unbeaten 71 to guide his team to 110/2 – which means they are now only 12 runs behind from making England bat again.

With the gloomy overhead conditions, England would have had high hopes of bowling South Africa out cheaply for the second time in the match. But the bowlers failed to fire first thing as they bowled to wide and allowed McKenzie and Amla to settle down.

As James Anderson and Steve Harmison failed to take early wickets, Pietersen turned to Broad, who had struggled with his line and length in the first innings. But he was much better today and took the wicket of McKenzie (29) with a beautiful delivery. The ball moved off the seam and uprooted McKenzie's middle-stump.

Amla continued to score freely at the other end and reached his 50 off just 60 balls as he struck a number of fine cover drives. He did get under the skin of Andrew Flintoff by edging fours down to the boundaries a couple of times.

Flintoff almost got his own-back when Amla inside-edged off the big all-rounder, but Tim Ambrose behind the stumps was unable to grab the chance diving to his left with ball bouncing out of his glove.